PayPal acquires app developers Duff Research

Purchase will continue PayPal's quest for mobile payments dominance

In a continutation of its move toward domination of the mobile payments space, PayPal has purchased app developers Duff Research.

"Last year, we began developing all of our products with a mobile-first mentality to drive engaging, simple customer experiences. As PayPal continues to be a leader in mobile payments, we are looking for talented engineers with proven mobile experience to help us imagine, develop and deliver products our customers love. ," PayPal CTO James Barrese wrote in a blogpost Wedneday, in which he announced the acquisition.

PayPal says that the entire engineering team at Duff Research will be joining PayPal. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Sunnvale, California-based Duff Research provides software development and user experience expertize for the mobile app space. 

The company has shipped more than 40 apps, for companies that include Tivo and Adidas. The company is behind such apps as Swivl, Rocknor's Doughnut Factory and the Parker app for Streetline. The company's apps hold 10 of the top 25 apps on iOS. 

Duff Research has won a number of awards, including four "Best of CES" awards and a technical Emmy. Its Adidas miCoach iOS app was named Stuff Magazine's "2010 Mobile App of the Year," while the Android version of the app was featured on the front page of the Android Market and downloaded over 1 million times in the first 40 days of availability.

“PayPal is giving our team the opportunity to transform an industry and enhance people’s daily lives with technology. They’ve built the industry’s leading online payments platform, and our entire team is excited by the opportunity to work with the amazing group of technologists already at PayPal," Duff Research said in a statement.

This is PayPal's first acquisition since it purchased Cardo.io, company that provides technology for developers to capture credit card information by using the camera on a smartphone, in June 2012.

Mobile payments

The purchase of Duff Research is another in a series of moves that PayPal has made over the last year to expand itself into the mobile payments space.

In March, PayPal announced the release of its triangle dongle, called PayPal Here, which processes mobile payments for small businesses internationally. 

The PayPal here allows small business owners to show the customer the total, as well as allow customers easy tip-of-the-finger signing, as well as allowing for the ability to scan cards if the dongle is lost or damaged. A merchant can scan the card (or checks) to secure payment. A great way to assure no revenue is lost.

After partnering with 16 national retailers in May of last year, the company set itself a goal of having partnerships with 20 retailers by the end of 2012. 

Not only was PayPal was able to meet that goal, it actually passed it, announcing relationships with seven new retailers in January, bring its total to 23.

PayPal seven new retailers include Famous Footwear, Dollar General, Mapco Express, RadioShack, Spartan Stores and two additional partners that PayPal said that it would sharing with the public at a later date.

PayPal announced that it was working with NCR to integrate PayPal into several of its products, includin the NCR Mobile Pay application and NCR Aloha Online Ordering.

Most recently, PayPal partnered with Gilbarco to  bring digital payments, and other mobile solutions, to the company's gas stations and convenience stores.

These retailers joined the other 16 national retailers that PayPal was already partnered with: Abercrombie & Fitch, Advance Auto Parts, Aéropostale, American Eagle Outfitters, Barnes & Noble, Foot Locker, Guitar Center, the Home Depot, Jamba Juice, JC Penney, Jos. A. Bank Clothiers, Nine West, Office Depot, Rooms To Go, Tiger Direct and Toys “R” Us.

(Image source: https://www.paypal.com)