Seth Priebatsch
Chief Ninja at SCVNGR
Mobile Payment Solution LevelUp Now Seeing $1M Per Month In Transactions; Launches API
The mobile payments networks has been growing fast, SCVNGR and LevelUp Founder Seth Priebatsch tells us, as it now counts over 100,000 users and has partnered with 1,400 merchants in Boston, NYC, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Seattle, San Francisco, San Diego, and Chicago. First and foremost... Read more »
LevelUp Now Has $21M To Take On The Squares Of The Mobile Payment World
That’s why Seth Priebatsch launched LevelUp (as an off-shoot of SVNGR) in beta last July, hoping to create an easy, carrier and card-agnostic payment and loyalty system that could be used everywhere. Since then, the company has grown its U.S.-based staff to 162 and Priebatsch ... Read more »
LevelUp Tries Dropping the Transaction Fee for Mobile Payments
Seth Priebatsch, Scvngr’s chief executive, said that instead of charging for transactions, LevelUp will instead bring in revenue through special campaigns for merchants. For instance, the local deli could offer $2 off a $10 sandwich for anyone using LevelUp for the first time at the ... Read more »
LevelUp Grabs $12M From Highland, Google Ventures To Take Its Mobile Payment Solution National
Believing mobile payments are the future, Seth Priebatsch (of SCVNGR fame) and team launched LevelUP, a mobile payment and rewards network into beta in July 2011. Since then, the mobile payment network has been growing fast, as it now counts over 200K users and has partnered with more ... Read more »
LevelUp app makes payment a game with iPhone, Android
When I spoke to LevelUp chief "ninja" Seth Priebatsch, he assured me that the security the app uses ensures that there's no credit or debit card information stored on the consumer's phone, transferred to the merchant or ever even stored on LevelUp's servers. They use a "triple-blind ... Read more »
Interchange Fees Are For Suckers: LevelUp Recruits Sales Horde To Peddle Payment System
Seth Priebatsch, a wide-eyed 24 year-old with a taste for orange polos and matching sunglasses, is looking to change that. As the CEO of LevelUp, a Boston-based company that spun out of SCVNGR, his previous “game-layer on top of the world” startup, Priebatsch has presided over a ... Read more »
The Starbucks-Square Deal: Visionary or Risky?
Seth Priebatsch, chief executive of Scvngr, which offers a mobile payment app called LevelUp, said in an e-mail that this was an “awesome deal” for Square, but could be a dangerous move strategically. He said that Square had a top-down approach with its technology: It provides an app and ... Read more »
Mobile Payments Dance Draws a Crowd
So, Chief Executive and Chief Ninja Seth Priebatsch decided the company would eat the 3% or so processing fee normally charged to merchants in exchange for 35% of any new business LevelUp delivers via one of its campaigns. While the 0% may send shivers down providers of credit card ... Read more »
Pedro L. Rodriguez: SXSW Chronicles: Digital Disrupts Economy, Politics and Redefines Relationships...
Seth Priebatsch, "Chief Ninja" at SCVNGR (pictured below) presented on a particularly interesting topic: Interchange Zero. His idea behind the future of payments is using game mechanics (sunken reward, progressive and appointment dynamics) to drive mobile wallet usage. The basic premise ... Read more »
Loyalty program LevelUp to launch in Chicago
"The competitive landscape in Chicago is going to be more intense than some of the other cities we're entering, for sure," said LevelUp Founder Seth Priebatsch. But he said his platform stands out because it's easy to use and doesn't use discounts to woo consumers. "LevelUp is not a ... Read more »
10 Hot Tech Startups: Where Are They Now?
" Seth Priebatsch launched his company SCVNGR with a location-based gaming app of the same name when he was just a freshman at Princeton in 2008. Over time, he built up plenty of buzz for his vision of adding a game layer on top of the real world. But it was his follow-up to that app... Read more »
LevelUp hedges bets, supports NFC payments
Seth Priebatsch, LevelUp’s chief ninja, said the move to support NFC was guided in part by the possibility that Apple was preparing to include the short-distance wireless technology in the next iPhone. But while that appears to be less likely these days, Priebatsch said LevelUp is ... Read more »
LevelUp Debuts on Windows Phone to Commoditize Mobile Payments
Because LevelUp CEO Seth Priebatsch believes that mobile payments will become commoditized, and that means being everywhere. Given the already-bloated list of companies working on mobile payments, I’m inclined to agree. This belief in a pending commoditization led to LevelUp nixing the ... Read more »
LevelUp's Free Payments Scheme Is So Bananas It Just Might Work
And today, founder Seth Priebatsch unveiled a plan to give away the hardware they need to take payments, too. Deutsche Telekom's venture-capital arm, T-Ventures, is the latest investor to join. Google Ventures, Highland Capital, and Balderton Capital are among its prominent other ... Read more »
Boston Mobile Payment Company Raises Another $21 million « CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS0 – Seth Priebatsch, self-proclaimed Chief Ninja at LevelUp, tells me his app allows users to scan their mobile device which is linked to their credit card. Priebatsch says the system allows merchants to save on interchange fees and gives customers incentives & ... Read more »
Scvngr CEO Priebatsch saw dad’s tragic Mt. Washington fall
Hub tech wunderkind Seth Priebatsch was witness to his father’s tragic fall on Tuckerman Ravine on Sunday, when the accomplished biotech entrepreneur slid over a rock bend and vanished into a deep crevasse, authorities said. The search for Norman Priebatsch was suspended late Sunday “due ... Read more »
Mt. Washington rescue effort halted for Boston entrepreneur Norman Priebatsch (report)
Past profiles by the New York Times and CNN name Norman Priebatsch as the father of another Boston-area entrepreneur, Seth Priebatsch, who is the founder and CEO of Scvngr Inc. Michael Gaiss, vice president at Highland Capital Partners, an investor in Scvngr, took to Twitter to express ... Read more »
Why LevelUp isn't failing
LevelUp founder Seth Priebatsch displays the company's new mobile payments hardware, which began shipping to merchants this month. Priebatsch said the improved hardware is one sign that the company is growing. The first of a two-post series. Tomorrow's post: "Why LevelUp is ... Read more »
Entrepreneurs: Born or Made? Princeton Dropout vs. Wharton MBA
Seth Priebatsch is a 22-year-old Princeton dropout, who founded and heads up Boston-based mobile gaming startup SCVNGR, which is parent company to mobile payments application LevelUp. Piebatch’s SCVNGR – which he plans to make “a game layer on top of the world” – is currently valued at ... Read more »
Engineering a Mass-Market Payment Revolution
Seth Priebatsch was bon in Boston. At the age of 12, he founded his first web start-up. It failed gloriously, achieving profits several times those of Twitter. After completing his freshman year at Princeton (the official requirement to achieve the term dropout), Seth took a leave ... Read more »
