When I emailed a Square spokesperson about the story, they declined to comment. TechCrunch says Sequoia Capital is leading the round after beating out some of Silicon Valley’s other top firms, including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Benchmark Capital.
[aditude-amp id="flyingcarpet" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":235413,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"business,entrepreneur,mobile,","session":"B"}']The San Francisco startup makes a credit card reading device that can be attached to your Android phone, iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad. One of the big challenges for Square (and competitors like FaceCash) is recruiting businesses to use the service, but it’s trying to overcome that difficulty by offering the card reader for free, then charging a small fee on each transaction. Back in November, the company said it was processing millions of dollars in transactions every week.
Square may be facing some legal challenges, because Washington University professor Bob Morley, who says he developed the technology with Square’s founders, was recently granted a patent that’s key to Square’s business.
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