Rentalic, a person to person rental marketplace, took the top prize of $100,000 ($50,000 in cash and $50,000 in waived processing fees). Appbackr, a wholesale marketplace for iPhone applications, won $50,000 ($25,000 cash and $25,000 in waived processing fees).
Rentalic is an online person to person marketplace for owners to rent anything that they own, from vacation properties to camping equipment. Rentalic uses PayPal's preapproval API to validate that a customer has sufficient funds for a rental fee and deposit in a PayPal account before making a reservation. After the borrower returns the item or property back to the owner, the owner can provide feedback on the Rentalic site and fully or partially refund the deposit with the click of a button. Rentalic automatically takes a percentage of each rental.
“PayPal X made payments easy, which allowed us to create the most seamless and intuitive experience for our customers,” said Punsri Abeywickrema, founder and CEO, Rentalic. “Now our customers have a fast and secure way to save and earn money for the items that they own but rarely use.”
Appbackr is the first wholesale digital marketplace for iPhone applications. Developers can pre-sell units of their iPhone applications to wholesale buyers and value added marketers before the apps appear in the iTunes App Store. Built on the PayPal X platform and using the parallel payments and preapproval APIs, developers get paid immediately for their app and the “appbackrs” earn a profit when the units sell on the iTunes Store.
“PayPal’s Innovate conference gave me the inspiration, tools and support to make our idea come to life,” said Trevor Cornwell, founder and CEO, appbackr. “PayPal X is like a fiber optic network for moving micro-payments - simple, seamless and efficient. Making multi-party micropayments a reality is a complete game changer that creates new businesses that simply weren’t possible before.”
The two winners were among the finalists selected by popular vote on the PayPal X Web site, x.com. More than 650 submissions were received. The first and second-place winners were chosen by a panel of distinguished judges, including Pierre Omidyar, founder and chairman of eBay Inc. (Nasdaq:EBAY); PayPal president Scott Thompson; Marc Andreessen, eBay board member and general partner of Andreessen/Horowitz; Scott Cook, eBay board member and co-founder Intuit Inc.; and Sequoia Capital's Roelof Botha.
“The future of payments is in developers’ hands and we’re committed to doing everything we can to help them succeed,” said Osama Bedier, vice president of PayPal's platform and emerging technologies. “The developer challenge and our new startup accelerator program are two more tools that PayPal is delivering to help developers create innovative new businesses that will change the way we pay.”
“Rentalic and appbackr stand out because their founders intimately understand the user’s pain point and have developed a compelling payments solution,” said Roelof Botha, venture capitalist at Sequoia Capital. “We look forward to seeing how these entrepreneurs take their products to market.”
Since it was launched in November 2009, more than 25,000 PayPal X developers have signed up on PayPal’s developer portal, x.com, and more than 100 applications using PayPal X are now live. For more information on activities at DEMO, follow the conversation at #DEMOspring10.
PayPal X Startup Accelerator program
As part of its continuing commitment to supporting developer innovation, PayPal also today announced the PayPal X Startup Accelerator program, which helps connect developers with PayPal and other business partners interested in their ideas. Through the program, developers have access to PayPal's venture capital network for insights on funding, business development strategies and go to market planning, as well as an opportunity to explore commercial relationships with PayPal.
Eligible firms may also be selected by PayPal to work for three months in the PayPal X Startup Accelerator pavilion, located at the Plug and Play Tech Center in Silicon Valley. During this time they will have direct interaction with PayPal’s developer support and business development teams, receive guidance from Executives in Residence, present their plans to angel investors and VCs, and participate in a variety of networking events. Interested startups can request access to and find more information about the PayPal X Startup Accelerator program at x.com.
About PayPal
PayPal is the faster, safer way to pay and get paid online. The service allows members to send money without sharing financial information, with the flexibility to pay using their account balances, bank accounts, credit cards or promotional financing. With more than 81 million active accounts in 190 markets and 24 currencies around the world, PayPal enables global ecommerce. PayPal is an eBay company and is made up of three leading online payment services: the PayPal global payment service, the Payflow Gateway and Bill Me Later. The company's open payment platform, PayPal X, allows developers to build innovative payment applications on multiple platforms and devices. More information about the company can be found at https://www.paypal.com.