When a fast-growing, industry-changing startup gets acquired, especially in a city like Chicago, it can sometimes be viewed as a mixed bag. Could the company have remained independent, and eventually gone public? Will its impact be lessened under a larger, less nimble corporate giant?
Did the city miss the chance for its next great tech pillar?
But other times, an acquisition can set a high-growth startup up for even greater success, and it continues to scale as it did as an upstart.
That's the case with Braintree, a Chicago-based payments startup that was acquired by PayPal for $800 million in 2013. Braintree announced Wednesday, following PayPal's Q2 earnings report, that it now processes more than 1 billion payment transactions per quarter. It's a major milestone for a company that isn't headquartered in Silicon Valley or New York, but in Chicago's Merchandise Mart.
"This is another significant milestone in the Braintree story as we continue to prove how uniquely well-positioned we are---in partnership with the power and reach of PayPal’s global two-sided network---to drive the future of commerce forward," Braintree executive Juan Benitez said in a company blog post.
Since launching out of the University of Chicago in 2007, Braintree has grown to 500 employees (most of whom work in Chicago) and has big names like Uber, StubHub, Facebook and Airbnb using its payment services.
Braintree said last year that transaction volume on its platform had grown 25x, nearly tripling every year since it was acquired by PayPal. In 2015, it surpassed $50 billion in payment volume.
Working behind the scenes to process payments for startups and large enterprises, most consumers aren't aware that they've interacted with Braintree, but almost certainly have. If you've sent money with Venmo, played fantasy football on FanDuel, or ordered something on Jet.com, you've used Braintree.
Braintree has been so influential in the mobile payments space that CB Insights named it one of the 20 most significant tech acquisitions since 2009.
"The opportunities we see are endless and, in fact, we think we’re just getting started," Benitez said. "As we look to the future, we’re excited to continue to support our merchants and continue to be the platform and partner that transforms global commerce."
