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PayPal Acquires Mobile Commerce Platform Modest

PayPal has acquired mobile commerce startup Modest, marking the company’s first purchase since its split from eBay in July. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

All 20 Modest employees, including Co-Founders Harper Reed and Dylan Richard, will join payment processor Braintree, PayPal’s subsidiary, in its Chicago office.However, the Modest team’s roles and titles at Braintree still have not been determined, according to the Chicago Tribune. Reed will join Braintree’s leadership team, while Richard will assume a senior leadership role.

With the Modest acquisition, PayPal is aiming to extend its presence in mobile and social commerce, particularly focusing on “contextual commerce.” In a company blog post, Bill Ready, SVP of Global Head of Merchant and Next-Generation Commerce at PayPal, describes contextual commerce as a category of shopping where consumers can share and discover new items and “buy the things they find, at the moment of discovery.”

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Modest technology is designed to allow retailers to embed buy buttons within their own apps and emails — a key value proposition that potentially piqued PayPal’s interest in the company. After all, Braintree already plays a role in powering the “Buyable Pins” feature on Pinterest by handling consumer credit card information and ensuring data security. The buyable pins enable consumers to purchase items on Pinterest without having to click to another web page.

“Contextual commerce is an exciting opportunity for PayPal, representing a new frontier for commerce that is rapidly growing,” Ready, also the CEO of Braintree, said in the blog post. “For merchants, this means PayPal will be able to offer a complete commerce solution (payments and order management) to help them add contextual commerce channels to the ways that they sell to their customers.  For consumers it will mean seamless, simpler, and safer ways to buy the things they want, anywhere they discover them.”

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