Accel EIR Steps In As CEO Of Online Payments Platform Braintree

Leena Rao

Leena Rao is currently a Senior Editor for TechCrunch. She recently finished graduate school at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, where she studied business journalism and videography. From 2004 to 2007, she helped lead Congresswoman Carloyn Maloney’s community outreach and relations efforts in New York City. She graduated from Columbia University in 2003, where she was... → Learn More

Wednesday, October 19th, 2011
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Braintree, an Accel-backed online payments provider, is announcing a new CEO today—payments exec Bill Ready. In July, Ready joined Accel as an Executive in Residence to bring his payments expertise to the firm’s portfolio companies and investment strategy.

Braintree, which just raised $34 million from Accel Partners, essentially powers and automates online payments for merchants and companies online. The company provides a merchant account, payment gateway, recurring billing, credit card storage, support for mobile and international payments, and PCI Compliance solutions.

BrainTree has become a one-stop-shop for all the services a business needs to receive payments from anywhere in the world. The company’s clients include Airbnb, LivingSocial, OpenTable, Animoto, Lookout, Shopify, Brightcove, Hotel Tonight, GoMobo, 37Signals, and GitHub.

Ready joined Accel from electronic bill pay provider iPay Technologies, where he served as President, and helped manage the company’s sale to Jack Henry for $300 million last year. Previously, Ready served as iPay’s Chief Financial Officer and worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Co. where he focused specifically on advising companies in the payments and financial technology sector

Braintree founder Bryan Johnson will remain chairman of the company.

Braintree is growing like a weed, and Ready’s expertise should help the company continue that pattern. Over the past year, the company has grown 4,200 percent, is processing more than $8 million in online credit card payments daily, and is on track to process more than $3 billion in 2011.