Square, used by millions to ease payments by attaching a dongle to a mobile device to accept credit cards, is raising additional capital in a new round of financing that pushes its valuation to $6 billion. The company hopes to secure another $200 million in funding — with part coming from the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) — according to unidentified sources close to the company, CNBC reports. Any pending deals, however, have not been disclosed.
Square, led by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, has experienced steady growth in its value. Deals completed in 2012 with Sequoia, Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Starbucks valued the company at $3.25 billion. In early 2014, the company was valued at $5 billion in a secondary stock sale that allowed employees and investors to divest their shares. Investor demand exceeded supply in that round, according to sources cited by CNBC.
This new valuation comes at a time when the company is facing increased competition — namely from Amazon, which released its own card reading dongle in mid-August and undercut Square’s transaction fees. Paypal offers a similar service and also undercuts Square.
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Square also updated its Cash app this week. Cash is a free app for sending and requesting money. The update adds the ability to send or request money from anyone in the user’s address book using phone number or e-mail address. The latest version of Cash also features a refreshed design, payment tracking and requests via push notification and a new Profile feature for linking email addresses and phone numbers to one account.
Cash is less than one year old, but according to the company, it has enabled hundreds of millions of dollars in transactions, with more than a quarter of all transactions being sent across state lines.
The company also added Square Analytics to its register service. The reporting and analytics tool delivers data to sellers designed to help them increase sales and better serve customers. It integrates the full suite of Square Register products including Pickup, Invoices and Appointments.
