Square

A leading SMB payments and commerce platform, now operating as a business unit within Block, Inc., competing with PayPal, Stripe, Toast, and Clover in the point-of-sale and payment processing market.

Square, rebranded as Block, Inc. in December 2021, was founded in 2009 by Jack Dorsey and Jim McKelvey with the mission of democratizing commerce by enabling small businesses to accept card payments through a simple mobile card reader. The company grew rapidly to offer a comprehensive ecosystem of financial and business tools, including point-of-sale hardware and software, invoicing, payroll, inventory management, and small business lending through Square Capital. Its seller ecosystem became a dominant force in the SMB payments space, competing with legacy payment processors by offering transparent, flat-rate pricing and an integrated suite of tools accessible to businesses of all sizes. Beyond its core seller business, Square expanded into consumer financial services with the Cash App, a peer-to-peer payments platform that grew into a major consumer brand with banking, investing, and Bitcoin trading features. The company also acquired the music streaming platform TIDAL and the buy-now-pay-later company Afterpay, reflecting its ambitions beyond payments. These diverse assets ultimately drove the corporate rebrand to Block, Inc., a name intended to reflect the company's broader portfolio spanning blockchain, music, and financial services. While Square as a brand name continues to be used for the seller-focused business unit under the Block, Inc. umbrella, the corporate entity itself no longer exists independently. Square's significance to the marketing and media ecosystem lies primarily in its role as a major platform for small business commerce enablement, and it has been a significant advertiser in its own right, running large-scale campaigns to attract SMB customers. Block, Inc. trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker SQ.