ORCA (Internet currency platform)

ORCA, Inc.

Type	Private
Industry	E-commerce, Social Media, Technology, Consumer Internet
Founded	2008 (2008)
Headquarters	New York City, United States
Key people	Rich Caccappolo (CEO) Todd Davis (CTO) Chris Stowe (VP Payment Solutions) Phil Johnston, II (VP Technology & Engineering) Adam Ingberman (VP Client Services)
Services	Payments processing, Gifts & Rewards Programs, Promotions, Branded Currency, Seamless checkout process, Analytics
Parent	ORCA Digital Services, Inc.
Website	TheCorporationCompany.com

ORCA (short for Open Real-Time Currency Application) is a white-labeled payments and related transactions platform focused on ecommerce via mobile, apps and desktop browsing experiences. It enables merchants to reduce payment processing costs while at the same time grow revenue and profits by utilizing integrated customer acquisition, retention, and monetization features such as Optimized Checkout, Branded Payments, Cost effective processing of Micro-Transactions, Loyalty and Rewards Programs, Digital Gift Cards, and Integrated Analytics. ORCA's open-API enables companies to control the look and feel of transactions, as well as the usage of real and virtual currency, and send marketing messages without third party interference.^[1]

History

The ORCA platform was created in February 2008, and was launched to the public in July 2009. ORCA is funded by Metamorphic Ventures, KPG Ventures, and several prominent angels including Geoff Judge, Roger Ehrenberg, Craig Balsam and John Frankel.^[2][3]

On June 22, 2009 ORCA received $2 million in series A financing.^[4][5] On August 3, 2009 MediaPost published an article about ORCA, calling it an "E-Commerce Killer App."^[6]

Currently, ORCA's API is in private beta.^[7][8]

ORCA was founded in 2007^[9] and is based in New York City, with additional offices in San Francisco.

Partnerships

Mashery, a provider of on-demand API management solutions, works with ORCA to ensure its open APIs integrate and operate smoothly within a community's interface and back office operations. Mashery manages APIs for more than 70 companies including The New York Times and Best Buy. Mashery's on-demand API infrastructure provides the access management, business rules, monitoring, and metrics required to build scalable distribution channels using web services. Launched in 2006, Mashery is backed by First Round Capital, Formative Ventures, The Accelerator Group, .406 Ventures and many prominent angel investors.

Mashery is based in San Francisco, California.

Products and services

ORCA offers various services within its platform that address different payment, virtual currency and branding solutions.

The platform offers many popular features of major "closed" payment platforms such as iTunes, Amazon, Google Checkout, and Facebook credits in one unified platform. ORCA also manages merchant agreements with payment networks such as VISA, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, GiroPay, JCB and other international payment networks on behalf of its digital media companies.

ORCA was first made available in the United States in July 2009. The platform runs on JPOS, the prevailing open-source standard for financial software applications used by Chase, Blackhawk, First Data and other major financial services companies.

The extensive functionality is specifically designed for digital media companies with multiple transactions driven business models.

ORCA Pay

ORCA Pay is an online payment processing service aimed at providing digital media companies the functionality to accept online purchases using their own brands. Visitors to a specific website store their credit card, debit card or bank account information in a payment account brand of the website itself, so that users can purchase any e-commerce good at the click of a button.

ORCA Pay differs from major competitors First Data, PayPal, PaymentOne and others in that ORCA allows digital media companies to have full control of the "look & feel" of the transactions process. ORCA Pay is an open-API software platform, allowing developers to integrate ORCA seamlessly into third party applications. Unlike larger competitors, ORCA enables digital media websites to create a payment account and purchase an item seamlessly within the experience on the site instead of having to use shopping cart software or redirecting to another web page of a digital payments company such as PayPal, Moneybookers, or Google Checkout.

ORCA Points

ORCA Points allows developers to create a loyalty program for users to earn points and redeem them for gifts or rewards. Like airline frequent-flyer programs, brands can offer benefits only available to VIP members, making users actively seek out elite status.

The platform is able to convert real money into virtual currency for micro-transactions. The virtual currency may be branded in any way the digital media company chooses, and popular applications include loyalty programs, rewards points, credits, virtual coins. The virtual currency conversion is of the digital media company's choosing - for example one euro might equal 800 virtual currency units, which are then used in the online transaction.

ORCA Pre

ORCA Pre gives digital companies a way for their customers to reserve popular items ahead of time, and allows developers to implement an organized advanced ordering system. The pre-ordering feature allows users to pre-pay for digital goods or content, usually at a discounted price, as they become available. This purchase is made on a digital media company's website. All currently available digital content will automatically download. Anticipated digital content or goods are downloaded automatically as they are released or published.

ORCA Post

ORCA Post helps digital media companies communicate account status and activity with their subscribers through their websites, e-mail, or text messages. Companies can send out low balance alerts, information on sales and discounts or other important information. ORCA Post enables subscribers to stay informed about important activity and also provides user analytics on where, what and when they purchased a digital good or service. ORCA provides digital media companies with an extra layer of protection for subscriber accounts. The platform enables digital media companies to set Euro or Dollar limits for different transactions, including virtual currency activity, frequency of account pre-orders and loyalty or rewards points redemption.

ORCA Pledge

ORCA Pledge is the vehicle through which digital companies can create their own branded virtual currency. Users can upload real money and seamlessly convert it to virtual money which then can be used for any online activity. ORCA Pledge is a stored value payment process, acting as digital version of popular prepaid debit cards and stored-value cards. Subscribers to digital media brands would have money on deposit or "stored" with ORCA Pledge similar to a debit card. One major difference between stored value cards and ORCA-managed accounts is that ORCA accounts are administered in the name of individual account holders, while stored value cards are usually anonymous. The value associated with the ORCA-managed account can be accessed using a mobile phone number and a password.

See also

• PayPal
• Electronic Money
• PayMate
• Zong
• Google Checkout
• Amazon 1-Click
• Automated Clearing House (ACH)
• E-commerce Payment System
• Internet Currency

References

1. ^ "MasterCard to stop third-party transactions". Usatoday.Com. 2002-04-18. http://www.usatoday.com/money/tech/2002-04-19-paypal.htm. Retrieved 2011-08-07. 
2. ^ [1]^{[dead link]}
3. ^ "Metamorphic Ventures Boosts Its Roster of Partners and Advisors with Latest Moves". Businesswire.com. 2009-08-04. http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20090804005926&newsLang=en. Retrieved 2011-08-07. 
4. ^ Kaplan, David (2009-06-22). "Social Net Payer oneTXT Raises $2 Million First Round". paidContent. http://paidcontent.org/article/419-social-net-payer-onetxt-raises-2-million-first-round/. Retrieved 2011-08-07. 
5. ^ "$2 million secured by social media payment platform - oneTXT | TopNews United States". Topnews.us. 2009-06-23. http://topnews.us/content/25724-2-million-secured-social-media-payment-platform-onetxt. Retrieved 2011-08-07. 
6. ^ "MediaPost Publications ORCA Has Hopes Of Being E-Commerce Killer App 08/04/2009". Mediapost.com. http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=110992. Retrieved 2011-08-07. 
7. ^ [2]^{[dead link]}
8. ^ "Web Payment Firm Gets $2M Financing". American Banker Article. 2009-06-23. http://www.americanbanker.com/issues/174_124/-383327-1.html. Retrieved 2011-08-07. 
9. ^ "OneTxt - Company Information on OneTxt". Venturebeatprofiles.com. http://venturebeatprofiles.com/company/profile/onetxt. Retrieved 2011-08-07. 

External links

• ORCA official site
• Mashery Inc., ORCA partner
• Metamorphic Ventures
• KPG Ventures