PayPal acquires startup founded by Obama campaign alumni

PayPal on Wednesday acquired a startup firm founded by a group of technology veterans from President Obama’s 2012 reelection team. 

The payment processing company announced it is taking over Modest, a company rolled out in February that allows merchants to create mobile shopping apps. 

Modest is led by Harper Reed, the Obama campaign’s former chief technology officer. Dylan Richard, the campaign’s director of engineering, is the firm’s chief technology officer. Based in Chicago, the company was in development for a few years before publicly launching. 

Reed told news outlets that he made the deal to expand the company, since PayPal is already an industry leader. 

In a blog post, PayPal noted that the newly acquired company will increase PayPal’s foothold in a new payment model that allows customers to buy products on multiple platforms “at the moment of discovery” — something described as “contextual commerce.”

“Modest allows merchants to offer an end-to-end experience that makes selling on any platform easier and simpler. They have built exceptional mobile technology and bring deep talent in contextual commerce to PayPal,” said Bill Ready, a senior vice president with PayPal. 

The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Modest will become a part of Braintree, an online payment company that was acquired by PayPal in 2013. Braintree is also based in Chicago.