Square is a financial services platform operated by Block, Inc.
History
In 2009, Jack Dorsey and Jim McKelvey began developing the Square payment service. The pair demonstrated the tech to investors at the 2009 Allen & Company conference, earning themselves an investment from Khosla Ventures.[1]
Square headhunted Bob Lee, a lead developer for Google's Android platform, in January 2010. He joined the team as Chief Technology Officer (CTO).[2] The company launched the first version of the service in May 2010.[1:1]
Square secured a debt financing agreement in April 2014 with Barclays, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Silicon Valley Bank (SVB).[3]
Investors
Investors in Square include:[4]
- Access Technology Ventures
- Acequia Capital
- Barclays
- Citi Ventures
- GGV Capital
- GIC
- Goldman Sachs
- JPMorgan Chase
- Khosla Ventures
- Kleiner Perkins
- Morgan Stanley
- Omega Venture Partners
- Rizvi Traverse
- Sapphire Ventures
- Sequoia Capital
- Silicon Valley Bank (SVB)
- Sozo Ventures
- Starbucks
- SV Angel[5]
- Tiger Global Management
- Tuesday Capital
- Virgin Group
- Visa
- VMware
External links
Further reading
- April 27, 2023: "Who Was Bob Lee?" by Liam Sturgess
Robischon, N. (2010, May 11). Square Brings Credit Card Swiping to the Mobile Masses, Starting Today. Fast Company. http://archive.today/2013.10.21-075818/http://www.fastcompany.com/1643271/square-brings-credit-card-swiping-mobile-masses-starting-today ↩︎ ↩︎
Hurley, B. (2023, April 5). Everything we know about the murder of Cash App founder Bob Lee. The Independent. http://archive.today/2023.04.05-191522/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/cash-app-founder-bob-lee-stabbed-san-francisco-b2314740.html ↩︎
Debt Financing - Square. Crunchbase. Retrieved April 5, 2023, from https://www.crunchbase.com/funding_round/square-debt-financing--e458eddf ↩︎
Square - Funding, Financials, Valuation & Investors. Crunchbase. Retrieved April 5, 2023, from https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/square/company_financials ↩︎
SV Angel. FinTech Global. Retrieved April 5, 2023, from https://web.archive.org/web/20230405234635/https://fintech.global/investors/sv-angel/ ↩︎
