Square融资几乎“烧尽” 或将押注新产品进行激进投资

    上周对拉贾兰和他的团队来说是异常繁忙的一周。5月12日，则会就爱公司发布了一款叫做Order的应用，人们可以通过这款应用从餐馆和咖啡厅预订餐饮并提前付费。这款应用取代了一度名噪一时、但最终用者寥寥的移动支付应用“Square钱包”。Square对大多数交易收取2.75%的手续费，但Order将收取高达8%的手续费。这款应用预计将面临来自贝宝（PayPal）和其它一些应用的竞争。

     5月13日，Square发布了它的首款订阅产品Feedback，它使商家可以把电子收据当成与顾客沟通的渠道。这项服务的费用是每个月10美元，订阅之后，商家就可以请消费者对他们的消费体验打分。然后商家可以对这些顾客进行回访，给不大满意的顾客提供折扣，或是给顾客发放优惠卷。拉贾兰在Square总部接受采访时表示：“这是围绕交易开展一次交流的机会。”

    拉贾兰表示，Square通过信用卡读卡器处理的海量交易使它获取了大量宝贵数据，公司可以把它们转换成其它生钱的业务。比如，这家公司有一个叫做“Square资本”的计划，可以向商家提供预借现金额度。这家公司从今年三月起开始测试这项业务，由于它知道该向哪些商家推销这项业务，所以采用这项业务的商家比率很高。

    Square在采访中很少谈及它的个人对个人支付服务Square Cash。不过“Square钱包”也并不是唯一一款让公司失望的产品，它与星巴克的高调合作也没有达到预期的利润。

    问到这个问题时，博萨想了片刻，才说：“从‘事后诸葛亮’的角度看事物是危险的。”他表示，从当时的角度看，Square与星巴克的这项合作合情合理，因为Square可以处理7000家星巴克门店的交易。另外Square还想通过这次合作促进Square钱包的采用率，但事情并没有朝着当初预想的方向发展。内部邮件显示，这笔合作使Square每年要多亏损2500万美元。

    博萨坚称，这笔交易还是给公司带来了很多好处的，比如无形中推进了Square的品牌，另外还把星巴克的创始人霍华德•舒尔茨吸引进Square董事会担任了一年的董事。他说：“霍华德为杰克和我们的团队提供了很好的价值。”

    另外一个重要的问题是，Square的估值是否真的被估到了50亿美元。最近合广风投基金（Union Square Ventures）的风投家弗莱德•威尔森在一篇广泛流传的文章中警告了我们所谓的“估值陷阱”。威尔森在这篇文章中写道：“天价估值、同样天价的烧钱速度，加上没了下文的IPO，绝对不是令人安心的迹象。”威尔森表示，Square公司和最近同样推迟了IPO的Box公司都有最终出现这种局面的可能。他还指出，他希望这两家公司都能“走出估值陷阱”，但在这个过程中，他们未必不需要做出“一些艰难的选择”。

    博萨否了存在这种担忧，他表示，他也曾见过一些公司的估值远超业务预期，最后由于估值猛跌而经历了痛苦的资产重组。然后他反问道：“你问我担心Square这方面的问题吗？我不担心。”

    既然今年没有了上市的计划，Square的高管自然也无需担心IPO市场转冷以及近期科技股普遍走低这些问题了。摆在他们面前更紧迫的问题是，公司的核心业务是否存在未能按预期速度增长的迹象——不管背后的原因是竞争、经济放缓，还是因为消费者或商家习惯的转变。如果真的出现了这种迹象，Square的如意算盘可能就要落空了。（财富中文网）

    译者：朴成奎

    The past week has been a busy one for Rajaram and his team. On Monday, the company launched Order, a new app that allows people to preorder and prepay for food from restaurants and coffee shops. The app replaces the once-ballyhooed mobile payment service Wallet after it failed to get wide consumer adoption. Square takes 2.75% of most transactions, but with Orders it will charge 8%. The app faces competition from PayPal, among others.

    On Tuesday, Square launched Feedback, its first subscription product. Feedback allows merchants to use receipts as a channel for communicating with customers. With the service, which costs $10 per month, merchants will be able to ask consumers to rate their experience. Merchants could then follow up with customers, offering discounts to those who were unhappy or sending coupons to fans. "It's an opportunity to start a conversation around a transaction," Rajaram said during an interview at Square headquarters.

    Rajaram said that the millions of transactions that Square processes through its credit card readers give it valuable data that it can turn into other money-making ventures. He said that Square Capital, a program to offer cash advances to merchants that it began testing in March, has had a high uptake rate among merchants in part because the company knows how to target the offers.

    Square has said little about the performance of its all-in-one cash register or Square Cash, its person-to-person payment service. But Wallet is not Square's only disappointment: Its high-profile deal with Starbucks has also failed to meet expectations.

    When asked about it, Botha took a long pause before saying: "It's dangerous to look at things with the benefit of hindsight." Based on what the company knew at the time, he said, it made sense to do the deal, which made Square the payment processor at 7,000 Starbucks locations. The company had hoped that the deal would boost adoption of Square Wallet, but that didn't pan out. Internal e-mails show the deal cost Square an additional $25 million in losses last year.

    Botha insists that plenty of good came from the deal, including the intangible boost to the Square brand and the benefit of having Starbucks founder Howard Schultz on Square's board of directors for a year. "Howard provided wonderful value to Jack and the team," Botha said.

    A big question is whether Square will grow into its $5 billion valuation. In a recent widely-read post, venture capitalist Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures warned about what we called the "valuation trap." "The combination of sky high valuations, equally high burn rates, and a disappearing IPO market is not a pleasant one," Wilson wrote. He said that Square and Box, which recently delayed its initial public offering, were both potentially facing that situation. Wilson wrote that he expected both companies to "navigate the valuation trap" but not without having to make "some hard choices."

    Botha dismissed those concerns, saying he had seen companies whose valuations had gotten ahead of their business prospects and suffered painful recapitalizations and financing rounds at decreasing valuations. "Do I worry with regards to Square?" he asked. "No."

    With no plans to go public this year, it's no surprise that the cooling of the I.P.O. market and the recent downturn in tech stocks is not a major concern for Square executives. A more immediate concern may be any sign that the company's core business stops growing at projected rates, whether from competition, a slowing economy, or the changing habits of consumers or merchants. If that happens, Square's well-laid plans may not amount to much.