Mobile payments company Boku raises $35m
The frenzy to invest in mobile payments providers continues with Boku, the San Francisco-based start-up raising $35m, in a funding round led by Telefónica Digital. It will take the total raised by the mobile transactions company to more than $75m since 2008.
Investors in this round also included New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Andreessen Horowitz, Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures, Index Ventures and Khosla Ventures. Read more
Tech news from around the web:
Patricia Dunn, a former board chairman of Hewlett-Packard, has died at age 58 after a long battle with cancer, The Wall Street Journal reports. During her time on the board, the company was embroiled in controversy after it emerged that it had hired private investigators to identify the source of board-level leaks to the media. Read more
Index and Charles Dunstone buy into iZettle, the European Square
Carphone Warehouse co-founder Charles Dunstone and Index Ventures have invested €8.2m ($11.2m) in iZettle, Europe’s answer to mobile-payment firm Square.
Sweden’s iZettle operates a payment system for small or nomadic merchants – be they market traders, window cleaners or conference-goers – through a card reader that attaches to the bottom of an iPhone. Read more
UK telcos join mobile wallet game
Now there is another mobile wallet to add to consumer confusion. The UK’s three largest mobile operators, Vodafone, O2 and Everything Everywhere, on Thursday said they had teamed up to create a single platform for making payments by mobile phone. Read more
Visa invests in mobile banking
The headlong rush into mobile banking continued on Thursday with Visa announcing two deals in this area. The payments company has bought Fundamo, a South African mobile software company for $110m. It has also signed a 5-year deal with Monitise, a UK company that helps verify mobile banking transactions.
The deals come after last month Google, Mastercard and Citigroup announced plans to launch a “mobile wallet” that could be used at a number of stores in the US. Read more
Apple’s magic touch could tip NFC
Reports that Apple could include near-field communication tags in its next iPhone, allowing people to transfer data – and probably iTunes payments – to and from their phones, have got tech watchers very excited indeed. Read more
| About this blog | Blog guide |
Richard Waters has headed the FT's San Francisco bureau since 2002 and covers Google and Microsoft, among other things. A former New York bureau chief for the FT, he is intrigued by Silicon Valley's unique financial and business culture, and is looking forward to covering his second Tech Bust.
Chris Nuttall has been online and messing around with computers for more than 20 years and since 2004 has reported from the FT's San Francisco bureau on semiconductors, video games, consumer electronics and all things interwebby.
Maija Palmer has been writing about technology for the FT since 1999 and is fascinated by cybercrime, privacy and all the other issues of the information society. Based in London, she covers European tech companies and hopes that they won't all get acquired by American rivals.
Robin Kwong is the FT's technology, media and telecoms page editor in London. Formerly he was the Taipei correspondent and wrote about the companies that manufacture the vast majority of the world's computers and gadgets. He is interested in the intricacies of the technology supply chain and how China is increasingly changing the tech landscape.
Tim Bradshaw is the FT's digital media correspondent, and has just moved from London to join our team in San Francisco. He has covered start-ups such as Twitter and Spotify, as well as the online ambitions of more established media companies, such as the BBC iPlayer. He also covers the advertising, marketing and video-game industries. Tim has been writing about technology, business and finance since 2003.
