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Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →eBay announced on September 26, 2013, that its PayPal unit would acquire Braintree for approximately $800 million in cash. The transaction closed on December 19, 2013, bringing Braintree’s developer-focused mobile checkout technology and Venmo into PayPal while keeping Braintree and Venmo as separate services. The deal was designed to accelerate PayPal’s mobile-payments growth, especially for businesses selling through smartphone apps.
What PayPal acquired and when
Legally, eBay announced and completed the transaction, while Braintree joined eBay’s PayPal business. The announcement said Braintree would operate as a separate PayPal service, with CEO Bill Ready continuing to lead the company and reporting to PayPal President David Marcus.
| Milestone | What happened |
|---|---|
| September 26, 2013 | eBay announced that PayPal would acquire Braintree for approximately $800 million in cash. |
| December 19, 2013 | The acquisition closed. Braintree remained a separate PayPal service, and Venmo remained a separate app. |
Why PayPal wanted Braintree
PayPal’s stated objective was to speed up its mobile-payments expansion. Traditional PayPal had strong consumer recognition and an online checkout network, while Braintree was built around application programming interfaces, streamlined checkout and the needs of mobile-first developers.
That combination addressed a specific shift in commerce: more purchases were beginning inside smartphone applications rather than on conventional desktop websites. PayPal later said the acquisition strengthened mobile payments and extended its reach to retailers whose services were delivered primarily through mobile apps.
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PayPal’s corporate history describes the longer-term positioning this way: “Braintree becomes part of the PayPal Commerce Platform, creating a full-stack payment service for businesses to add online and in-app shopping for their customers.”
What Braintree added
- A mobile-first payment platform aimed at developers and technology companies.
- Tools for adding checkout directly inside websites and mobile applications.
- Existing relationships with rapidly growing app-based businesses, including Airbnb, OpenTable, TaskRabbit and Uber.
- Venmo, a consumer mobile-payment app acquired as part of the transaction.
How much did PayPal pay?
The headline deal value and the later accounting value are both documented, but they are not the same figure.
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| Figure | Source and meaning |
|---|---|
| Approximately $800 million | eBay’s September 26, 2013 acquisition announcement, described as cash consideration. |
| Approximately $713 million | eBay’s 2013 filing, which reported accounting consideration consisting primarily of cash. |
The difference does not necessarily indicate a changed public price. The announcement presented the expected transaction consideration, while the later filing reported the amount recognized for accounting purposes after the deal closed and was measured under financial-reporting rules. For the acquisition itself, use the $800 million announcement figure and the approximately $713 million accounting figure with their respective attributions.
Braintree’s scale at the time of the announcement
The figures below describe Braintree’s position in 2013, not its current operating scale.
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| Measure | 2013 description |
|---|---|
| Payment volume | Approximately $12 billion projected for 2013. |
| Mobile share | About one-third of that projected 2013 volume was expected to come from mobile payments. |
| Geographic reach | Merchants in more than 40 countries. |
| Currency support | More than 130 currencies. |
| Single-click consumers | More than 40 million consumers covered by Braintree’s single-click purchasing capability. |
These were company descriptions and projections issued around the announcement. They should not be read as current PayPal or Braintree metrics.
Why in-app purchasing was strategically important
In-app checkout creates different demands from a standard web payment form. Developers want a payment flow that can be embedded in an app, reduce friction on a small screen and scale as a digital service gains users across countries. Braintree’s positioning gave PayPal a product aimed at that technical layer rather than only a branded consumer checkout button.
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- Accepts magstripe credit card payments, including those from Visa, Mastercard, Discover and American Express (fees apply).
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The acquisition also gave PayPal access to businesses whose customer relationships were formed inside apps. Instead of requiring every mobile company to redirect customers to a separate payment experience, Braintree’s platform was intended to let merchants keep purchasing within their own applications.
Venmo’s role
Venmo came with Braintree and was included in the acquisition’s mobile-payments rationale. At closing, eBay said Venmo would remain a separate app. That structure allowed PayPal to own the consumer service while preserving its distinct product identity rather than folding Venmo immediately into the PayPal app.
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What happened after the acquisition
In a September 2016 retrospective, PayPal reported that payment transactions on the Braintree platform had grown more than 25 times from the second quarter of 2013 to the second quarter of 2016. This later figure documents substantial platform growth during the first three years after the deal, although it does not provide a current transaction count or establish that every part of the increase was caused solely by the acquisition.
How to evaluate the deal’s significance
The acquisition mattered less as a simple purchase of payment volume than as a way for PayPal to add developer infrastructure and mobile distribution. The relevant questions are:
- Mobile and in-app checkout: Could a platform support purchasing inside applications as well as on websites?
- Developer integration: Did it offer tools and interfaces suited to software teams building digital products?
- Payment methods: Which cards, wallets and local methods could merchants accept?
- Geography and currencies: How broadly could a merchant sell internationally?
- Merchant scale: Could the platform serve both startups and high-volume technology companies?
- Consumer products: Were wallet services integrated into the checkout platform or kept as separate products?
On those dimensions, Braintree complemented PayPal’s established consumer brand with a mobile-first, developer-oriented service. That complementarity explains why eBay characterized the companies as a strong fit and why PayPal treated the acquisition as a central step in its mobile strategy.
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