Square Buys Analytics Startup for Its Merchant Cash Advance Team

Square has acquired analytics startup Framed Data to better target customers for Square Capital.

The startup mined data using machine learning to predict user behavior and purchasing decisions. Founded by data scientists in 2013, Framed Data will help Square use analytics to provide more capital to more merchants.

Square Capital is a big business for the company. It funded over $400 million in 70,000 merchant cash advances last year. The company’s first earnings report last week showed that it is beginning to bring bigger merchants into its customer base. The majority of Square’s point of sale customers are micromerchants, a fragmented market of low volume businesses.

It’s a crucial time for the company to prove to investors that it can grow beyond point of sale solutions for payments and Square Capital will play a major role in that.