Google Wallet Co-Founder Rob von Behren Joins Braintree

SAN FRANCISCO, April 30, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Braintree, the fastest growing payments platform for online and mobile commerce, today announced that Rob von Behren has joined the company as lead engineer for its San Francisco office. Widely considered a pioneer in the mobile payments space, von Behren was co-founder of Google Wallet and most recently an engineer at Square. In his new role, von Behren will help to advance Braintree's leading position in mobile commerce, including its one-touch mobile payment solution Venmo.

von Behren entered the payments world four years ago when he and co-founder Jon Wall conceived, founded and successfully launched Google's groundbreaking Google Wallet mobile payment system. A long-time systems engineer, von Behren has deep experience in distributed computation, high-performance computing and concurrent algorithms. He holds bachelor's degrees in mathematics and philosophy from the University of Washington and studied for his doctorate in computer science at the University of California, Berkeley.

"Rob is among a handful of the very best engineers in mobile and he will help us to continue leading the way in mobile commerce innovation," said Bill Ready, CEO, Braintree. "The best online and mobile commerce experiences run on Braintree because we have exceptional engineers like Rob building the payments tools they'd want to use for their own applications."

Braintree is rapidly becoming the standard for companies building next-generation e-and m-commerce experiences. Fab, Airbnb, Uber, LivingSocial, AngryBirds, HotelTonight and more than 4,000 of the world's leading e-commerce and mobile companies run on Braintree's payment platform. Braintree is handling more than $8 billion in annual payment volume, including more than $2 billion in mobile commerce transactions. The company is powering single-click purchasing for more than 40 million consumers and now allows for one-touch purchasing across apps on a mobile device with its Venmo Touch product.

"Joining Braintree gives me the opportunity to solve real problems companies and people face when transacting online and on mobile devices," said Rob von Behren, lead engineer, Braintree. "Braintree's approach to mobile is spot-on with the vision I have imagined for the future of payments. It's exciting to be part of realizing the potential."

Braintree has nearly tripled the company's headcount in the last year and has attracted top talent from many of the world's best technology companies, including Google, Square, Yahoo, Groupon and several well-known start-ups. In addition, Twitter's Senior Vice President of Engineering Chris Fry joined Braintree's board of directors in March. The company expects to continue hiring the very best engineers and entrepreneurs across its offices in San Francisco, New York and Chicago.

About Braintree

Braintree is the fastest growing payment platform for online and mobile businesses, offering all the tools needed to accept payments and provide consumers a frictionless experience at checkout. Braintree is replacing the traditional payment gateway and merchant account model in payments with a fully integrated online and mobile payments platform, including international payments, recurring billing and credit card storage, as well as industry-leading customer service and an easy-to-integrate API. Braintree operates internationally, and allows merchants in 40 countries in North America, Europe and Australia to accept payments in over 130 currencies. Braintree's consumer product, Venmo, offers a digital wallet with person-to-person payments and one-touch payments across apps, making it easy for consumers to make payments on mobile devices.

Braintree's solutions have been proven to scale and support many of the most discerning, high-growth companies on the web, including Rovio/Angry Birds, LivingSocial, Airbnb, Fab.com, OpenTable, Uber, LevelUp and HotelTonight. Braintree is now processing more than $8 billion annually from over 4,000 merchants, $2 billion of which is on mobile. Braintree enables single-click, frictionless purchasing at checkout for more than 40 million consumers. Visit Braintree at www.braintreepayments.com and on Twitter @braintree.

SOURCE Braintree