SQUARE DEAL

SQUARE DEAL — Square, the mobile payments company founded by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, has talked about selling to "several deeper-pocketed rivals," the Wall Street Journal reports. Serious talks were held with Google, the Journal says, and less formal discussions were held with Apple and PayPal. Square categorically denied "acquisition talks" with Google for the article, as did PayPal; Apple was not quoted. But, anyway, where's the fire at this high-profile startup with an implied value north of $5 billion?

During the first quarter of 2014, a Square executive told a potential acquirer that the company had nine months before it would hit a predetermined "cushion" of funds set aside as a last resort, according to a person with direct knowledge of the conversation. The figure was separately confirmed by someone close to Square.

Based on recent insider sales on the secondary market, the privately-held Square would have a value of about $5.2 billion. But the Journal says it lost more than $100 million last year — some $20 million alone from the high-profile deal with Starbucks — and has burned through more than half of the $340 million it has raised since 2009. It operates on razor-thin margins: 4/5ths of revenue alone goes to credit card companies, the paper says.