Visa Inc. has announced plans to acquire PlaySpan Inc. for nearly $190 million with additional earn-out potential.
The move comes as incumbents in the credit card and traditional payments space jostle with startups for positioning in the nascent mobile arena. PlaySpan isn’t purely mobile — it also provides tools for digital commerce, analytics and fulfillment — but mobile is surely part of what attracted Visa to PlaySpan.
Digital commerce sales reached $948 billion globally last year and according to Visa, it manages approximately 45% of U.S. online spend. PlaySpan generated approximately $25 billion in spending last year and is expected to reach $280 billion by 2014.
Visa’s acquisition of the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company is expected to close in the second quarter.