In spite of the fact that we now use smartphones to do just about everything, a winner has yet to emerge in the mobile payments space. Unlike mobile photo and video, consumers have yet to get fully comfortable with the idea of turning their phone into a mobile wallet. However, considering that just about every carrier, credit card company and software giant (like Google) is in the process of… → Read More
As a small startup, the mobile payment space shouldn’t be appealing. Every carrier and credit card company seems to have its own system, the space is fragmented, crowded and no standard for payment mechanisms has emerged. (QR codes, really?) To compete, startups need lots of capital, and then they need hardware. Which is why you have to give LevelUp some credit.
Since relaunching its mobile… → Read More
Mobile payment service LevelUp, an off-shoot of Boston-based SCVNGR, announced this morning that it has raised $9 million from T-Venture, the venture capital arm of Deutsche Telekom. The investment is the second tranche of a larger funding round and brings the total raised to just over $21 million. SCVNGR itself has raised over $31 million. As a result of the investment, T-Venture Senior Manager… → Read More
At the beginning of the year, Square doubled its retail presence, landing in about 20K outlets nationwide. As Jack Dorsey’s mobile payment system continues to find legs, all the major players have been rushing to bring their own solutions to market. Every day there’s a new headline about mobile payments solutions, yet in spite of all the noise, no one in particular has all the traction. That’s why… → Read More
With increasing smartphone adoption and with users in turn becoming more and more comfortable using their mobile devices to do things traditionally reserved for the Web or desktops, every industry is going mobile. But, when you consider the effect mobile technology has still yet to make on transactions — ye olde exchange of money/goods — there is a huge opportunity for disruption. Carriers… → Read More
Back in March, SCVNGR launched a product to complement its mobile scavenger hunt called LevelUp that essentially took on Groupon and the daily deals industry with a mobile product that focused squarely on one of the biggest problems with that very industry: Customer retention and loyalty. LevelUp, and Founder Seth Priebatsch inked deals with American Express and a few others to enable users to… → Read More
Back in March location-based game SCVNGR launched a spinoff venture called LevelUp — a direct competitor to Groupon, Living Social, and other daily deal sites. LevelUp’s key twist is that it has a heavy focus on generating repeat visitors, as opposed to customers who only stop by a venue once to redeem their deal. And today it has some significant news: it’s partnered with American Express to… → Read More
LevelUp.com, a Spanish-language video gaming portal that caters to Mexican, Latin American, and US Hispanic markets, has landed a deal with Yahoo! Mexico to power its video game content channel. Update: The company says that it is powering a separate game channel called “Juegos”.
Our English speaking readers may not be familiar with LevelUp, but the site’s parent company Busca Corp is quite well… → Read More
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