Twitter Acquires Payment Startup CardSpring For Real-Time Commerce

Twitter has acquired a payment startup called CardSpring. CardSpring helps developers write applications that accept credit card payments.

Startups like Foursquare already use CardSpring.

CardSpring raised $10 million from investors like SV Angel, Greylock Partners, Accel Partners, Felicis Ventures, and Data Collective. It was founded by Amit Kumar, Jeff Winner, Eckart Walther and Geraud Boyer.

Here's the blog post from Twitter announcing the news. It sounds like Twitter wants to use the technology to bring real-time commerce.

We're excited to announce we've agreed to acquire CardSpring, a payments infrastructure company that helps merchants work with leading publishers to create online-to-offline promotions.

Twitter has always been a vibrant environment for users to discover product recommendations and promotions from artists, experts, brands and friends. In fact, we've already given users the ability to get deals and discounts, surprise someone with a coffee, or even add items to their online shopping cart - all directly from a Tweet. As we work on the future of commerce on Twitter, we're confident the CardSpring team and the technology they've built are a great fit with our philosophy regarding the best ways to bring in-the-moment commerce experiences to our users.

We'll have more information on our commerce direction in the future. Meanwhile, check out the CardSpring blog post for more on today's news.