Tag: Jack Dorsey

The company founded by Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter, is filing for an initial public offering of $275 million.

Mobile payments company, Square Inc., which was founded by Jack Dorsey, the CEO at Twitter, has now filed for a $275 million IPO, though it is likely that the figure – which is considered to be a placeholder – will change before anything official takes place.

Aside from being a co-founder of Square, Dorsey is also the CEO and is the largest shareholder.

At the time of the writing of this article, Dorsey was holding onto a 24.4 percent stake of the company. The next largest owner is Jim McKelvey, whose stake in the company is 9.4 percent. Underwriters of the IPO include JPMorgan, Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Jeffries, Deutsche, RBC, Stifel and Barclays. The Form S-1 filing by the company was made with the Securities and Exchange Commission, but it did not identify a specific share price for the mobile payments company, nor did it state how many of the shares would be made available for purchase.

The primary focus of Square mobile payments is small businesses who wish to process credit card payments.

As a component of the intentions of the company to go public, Dorsey intends to donate the proceeds of tens of millions of shares of the company to the Start Small Foundation, his own charity. This was included within the regulatory filing. It states and underscores the point within the filing that says “This may at times adversely affect his ability to devote time, attention and effort to Square.”

While holding the top spots at two tech giants could be problematic, Dorsey has expressed that he is willing to delegate some tasks to some of Twitter’s senior execs, such as Adam Bain, the company’s COO.

There have been claims that one of the reasons that Dorsey had previously lost his position as the head of Twitter was due to having spent too much of his time on “extracurricular activities,” which included a broad spectrum of personal activities including a sewing class. Still, during the first half of this year, Square was profitable, having drawn in more than $560.6 million in revenue during that time. Still, though, increased spending has caused it to suffer a loss of $77.6 million.

Leaked documents suggest that Twitter is looking to establish itself in mobile shopping

Twitter may be preparing to jump into the mobile commerce game. According to leaked documents obtained by the UK Telegraph, the social network may soon make it possible for its 232 million users to purchase products directly from their mobile devices. The documents suggest that the service would be called Twitter Commerce, but there are not indications when this service would be made available for certain. Moreover, the leaked documents cannot necessarily be considered accurate and they could be nothing more than simple rumors.

Documents imply that Twitter has partnered with Fancy

The leaked documents suggest that the social network’s mobile commerce endeavors will come to fruition through a partnership with Fancy, an e-commerce merchant. Fancy counts Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s founder, as one of its prominent investors and board members. While this does not indicate Twitter’s absolute interest in mobile shopping, it does help establish a solid connection between the social network and Fancy. The leaked documents show mock-ups concerning how Twitter users would purchase products directly from product tweets that include a button that says “buy with Fancy.”

Twitter retains a strong focus on the mobile sector

Twitter has a strong interest in the mobile sector, but not necessarily commerce. The social network has done little in the way of directly supporting mobile payments and shopping, but Twitter has been working on ways to monetize its mobile interests. Facebook recently discovered the benefits of mobile commerce and how to integrate mobile shopping into its network and Twitter may soon follow suit. Indeed, this may be the beginning of a new trend in social media, wherein social networks begin to play a bigger role in the commerce space.

Mobile competition is already fierce

While Twitter may show an interest in mobile commerce, it will have to find a way to compete with organizations that already have a strong presence in that sector. The commerce space is awash with competition from various small firms and some large companies, including Google. Apple is rumored to be looking to enter into the mobile commerce space as well, which will add further competition to the crowded field.