Jumio, the computer vision startup backed by $32 million in funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Eduardo Saverin and others, is today announcing the first travel application to integrate its Netswipe technology. The app involved is the recently launched Hotel Deals by lastminute.com from Travelocity, which now allows users to hold up their credit card to their phone’s camera in order to pay at checkout. The feature reduces the checkout process to around 5 seconds, claims Jumio.
The feature isn’t new, though – it’s just now being made official that it’s Jumio powering the app’s card-reading technology. It’s also not the first app to use Netswipe, which may have you wondering what the big deal is. Well, for starters, Jumio has been fairly quiet about the size of its install base and the names of its business customers. Besides Western Union, which is also using Netswipe, we haven’t heard much about where Jumio’s Netswipe integrations can be found. That’s because in many cases, Netswipe is being white-labeled, meaning it appears as if it’s just a feature of the brand’s mobile app itself. In August, however, Jumio CMO Marc Barach did place the install base in the hundreds, admitting that the company had seen a small bump following competitor Card.io’s exit to PayPal.
Card.io, acquired by PayPal in July, operated differently with regards to disclosing its integrations. Before joining PayPal, the company was happy to tout its customer lineup, which often consisted of other startups, including Venmo, TaskRabbit, InvoiceASAP, WillCall, Uber, Lemon, LevelUp, and more.
In terms of Hotel Deals’ Jumio Netswipe integration, Travelocity is clearly leveraging the “wow factor” of Jumio’s technology to help promote its relatively new mobile application. Launched in September, the app competes with several other hotel finders from Priceline, Expedia, Orbitz, Booking.com, HotelTonight, and others, for last minute bookings. For a crowded space like this, it’s a race to not only offer the best inventory and lowest prices, but to sell users’ on the app’s overall experience as well. That’s what going on here. But it’s still cool tech, nonetheless.
