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Google reportedly interested in Square, but CEO prefers Apple

Google reportedly interested in Square, but CEO prefers Apple

By Hitesh Arora | Updated: 11 April 2014 15:19 IST

The future of payment startup Square is up in the air again with both Apple and Google believed to have held talks with the company over the past year about a possible acquisition.

As revealed by Re/code, Apple and Google are known to be considering the deal with Square, but Google is seen as "the most likely acquirer," given its existing Google Wallet platform.

Although no firm offers have been made so far, it is speculated that the deal with Google will 'disappoint' the Square CEO Jack Dorsey, as he believes that company's design aesthetic and values are more closely aligned with Apple.

Jack Dorsey - who is most famous as the co-founder and co-creator of Twitter - founded Square in 2009. The company has recently raised a giant sum of money (more than $200 million in equity financing) with money coming from various sources including Sequoia Capital, Visa and Starbucks.

Dorsey was also reportedly put off by Google after being involved in acquisition talks with the search giant for Twitter. Google has plenty of reason to buy Square, according to the report, as "it would want more information on purchases that consumers make, both to help prove how well its ads work and to perhaps better target those ads to individuals."

The report further notes that people close to the management team at Square said the company is not actively trying to sell it and only an offer of $8 billion or more would be seriously considered.

Re/code claims that the Square acquisition would be beneficial for both Apple and Square. But industry sources believe that Apple would be more likely to start mobile payments with services that use its iPhones to help make online purchases easier and Square will not be of much help in that regard as it offers a more robust offline system instead.

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