Technology

Stripe is expanding beyond online payments with the launch of a new product for in-person payments at brick-and-mortar stores, called Terminal.

The company said Terminal has three main components — therehardware, namely card readers built by Stripe partners BBPOS and Verifone, but also SDKs and APIs for customizing checkout experiences, as well as software for managing connected devices.

Stripeco-founder and president John Collison discussed the launch at the Code Commerce conference today. Interviewer Jason Del Rey brought up Square, which seems like the obvious point of comparison, and Collison acknowledged there will probably be areas where the companies will compete.

However, he argued that Stripe and Square are largely targeting different customers — where Square built a card reader for businesses like coffee shops and restaurants, Stripe is aimed at more tech-savvy businesses. Its initial Terminal customers include Warby Parker and Glossier, and italso being used by software platforms like Mindbody, Zenoti, AtVenu and Universe.

As Collison put it, Stripe is built for companies &who will geek out about APIs with us.& And that applies to Terminal as well, which Collison said is specifically built for online businesses that are moving into brick-and-mortar stores. The goal here is to help them unify their online and offline customer data and experiences.

And while therebeen some debate about whether most web-based, direct-to-consumer businesses are true tech companies, he argued, &All of them value technology and fundamentally, their assets are not the retail distribution they have or anything like that.&

&We will happily work with all manner of companies, but the kinds of customers we get excited about, the kinds of customers we are designing for, are the ones who are moving very quickly,& he added.

Apple announcement last week of a Watch with an FDA-approved ECG reader to track heart health looked to be the undoing of original ECG reader company AliveCor. But, to prove it still has a hearty pulse, AliveCor tells TechCrunch it is coming out with a &never-before-seen& 6-lead electrocardiogram (ECG), pending FDA approval.

In a care clinic, a patient typically has 12 leads, or stickers placed across their chest to pick up data from their heart. However, other ECG readers typically have one or two leads. The Apple Watch places a single lead system on the wrist. The 6-lead ECG reader is, in theory, more accurate because there are more sensors picking up more information, which could be critical in saving lives.

AliveCor and the Apple Watchcurrent function is to pick up AFib — or the detection of an irregular heart beat.AliveCor announced earlier this month it had received FDA-approval to use its ECG readers to detect a rare but dangerous blood condition called hyperkalemia.

With 6-lead ECG readers, the AliveCor device could also pick up about 100 differentdiseases, according to CEO Vic Gundotra, who rattled off a bunch of long-worded maladies I can&t even begin to pronounce but hehoping his reader will soon be able to detect.

However, one important detection would be ST elevation — one of the key factors associated with the onset of a heart attack and which could get a person on their way to the hospital before they start displaying other physical symptoms.

Of course, Apple — which already holds 17 percent of the wearables market — could easily decide it, too, needs to add a 6-lead ECG reader to the Watch and beat AliveCormarket yet again. But Gundotra shrugs at that suggestion.

&They could but we have some pretty good patents in the space,& he told TechCrunch, adding &Apple has done me a great service, actually. We&re a small company but you are talking to me, calling about this [because of their announcement].&

No formal name has been announced yet for the 6-lead product, but AliveCor will be working with the FDA on the regulatory pathway for it and hopes to bring it to over-the-counter consumers by 2019.