Credit card provider American Express (Amex) has agreed to buy Sometrics, a US-based virtual currency company backed by media group Disney’s corporate venturing unit, for a reported $30m.
Sometrics has sold 3.3 trillion units of its Game Coins virtual currency (pictured) since launching in 2007, with more than 2 million users spending the currency every month, and news provider TechCrunch said Amex was paying $30m.
Disney’s Steamboat Ventures had led the $4m series B round for Sometrics in October 2009, with its managing director Beau Laskey joining the portfolio company’s board.
The other investors in the B round had been Sometrics’ previous investors, the Mail Room Fund (a now-closed venture fund set up in 2008 by a joint venture fund established by creative firm William Morris Agency, venture capital firms Accel Parners and Venrock and phone operator AT&T) and Greycroft Partners.
AT&T and Greycroft Partners had co-invested along with the Mail Room Fund in Sometrics’ May 2008’s $2m round.
The Sometrics platform will be integrated into American Express’ mobile payment system, Amex Serve, which is competing against peer Visa’s Isis project formed out of a partnership with AT&T. Last year, American Express acquired Revolution Money for $300m to form Amex Serve.