Executives at mobile payments start-up Square are discussing the possibility of being acquired, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. Potential suitors listed in the report include Google, Apple and eBay.
Square reportedly lost $100 million (about £59m, AU$107m) in 2013, according to The Wall Street Journal's two unnamed sources. Additionally, the startup has used more than $170 million (about £101m, AU$182m) of the $340 million (about £202m, AU$364m) it had raised since 2009, the sources said.
Mobile payments
Square is a mobile payments solution that provides the software and hardware that enables merchants to swipe credit cards on mobile devices. The company was founded in 2009 by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and Jim McKelvey.
The Wall Street Journal projects Square could be sold for "billions of dollars" despite a 6% decrease in gross margins from 2012 to 2013 and a business model that yields thin profit margins due to fees the company must pay to payment networks like Visa and MasterCard.
Square processed more than $20 billion (about £11.9b, AU$21.4b) in transactions, yielding revenue of about $550 million (about £327m, AU$589m) in 2013, according to the report.