Mojang, the Swedish game developer behind Minecraft, Scrolls and Cobalt, has joined the list of tech companies that use Braintree as a mobile or online payment platform. Braintree also announced that it now processes $10 billion in payments annually, compared to the $8 billion the company disclosed just three months ago. More than 25% of payments originate outside the U.S., a figure that highlights the importance of global markets to the Chicago-based company’s expansion plan.
Other European companies that use Braintree include security software developer AVG Technologies, The Economist, Angry Birds maker Rovio, Click A Taxi, Hailo, MailMojo, Tictail and Wrapp.
Klas Bäck, Braintree’s General Manager of International, says that the company, which serves U.S. startups including Uber, Fab and Airbnb, decided to tackle Europe and Australia as the first part of its international expansion because of the amount of requests it received for its payment platform on those continents. Braintree currently has satellite offices in Sydney and London.
In Europe, Braintree offers an alternative to payment gateways and merchant accounts which are typically operated by large banks and companies and difficult for smaller startups to access.
“If you are a startup or a younger company, there are not really many solutions that will cater to you. Traditional banks and financial institutions are not keen on startups. They are perceived as riskier, with a higher potential to go under,” says Bäck.
Though there is less demand for mobile payment platforms in Europe than there is in the U.S., Braintree services several clients, such as UK-based taxi hailing app Hailo, which only offer their services through mobile apps. Twenty percent (or $2 billion) of total payments processed by Braintree come from mobile devices.
Braintree has not disclosed the next phase of its international expansion, but Bäck says possible targets beyond Europe include Latin America and the Asia Pacific region. Braintree’s focus on providing mobile developers with a payment platform may help it win over startups in emerging economies, such as India and Indonesia, where a rapidly increasing number of consumers rely on mobile devices as their sole point of entry to the Internet.