(Image Source: Wikimedia)

BY JIM FLINK

Virgin Atlantic founder Richard Branson has dialed up his investment in the mobile payment system Square.
The word coming from Jack Dorsey,Executive Chairman of Twitter, CEO of Square and a founder of both. And yes, he tweeted it.

“Entrepreneur helping entrepreneurs: @RichardBranson joins us as an investor in @Square (and we're thrilled)!”

Branson took the more conventional route.
Posting on his Virgin website...

“Richard Branson took interest in Square's rapid growth and novel technology, in particular its free hardware that allows anyone to accept credit card payments anywhere, anytime.” 

How much Sir Richard invested isn’t known.
But the man with the Midas touch really doesn’t need to reveal such things.
ZDNet notes, Branson is known for spotting a good opportunity -- and seizing it.

“[Square] has already shipped over 800,000 card readers to merchants and is now processing over $2 billion in payments annually.  An international expansion is planned for 2012, and Branson’s financial involvement could give that and Square’s overall fight in the crowding market of mobile payments a significant boost.”

Did someone mention a crowd?
The Los Angeles Times notes, Square is loading up on investors, for a mega-title fight to take over the mobile payment market.
It won’t be easily won.

“The San Francisco-based company, in which Visa is also an investor, is going up against heavyweights such as Google, MasterCard, PayPaland an alliance of AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon in the quickly growing "mobile wallet" space that allows users to pay for things with smart-phone apps rather than credit cards.”  

And the Times notes, Branson's investment follows a $100-million investment by the venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which pushed Square past a $1-billion valuation.
But it is Branson’s investment that has catapulted Square into the headlines.  Why?
The Atlantic Wire notes it’s...

“...Branson's tendency to turn heads and disrupt the status quo whenever he enters a new industry. Take, for instance, the time he decided to make space tourism a reality. He founded Virgin Galactic and built the world's first spaceport — all in the span of a few years.  The geeks and executives of Silicon Valley know Branson is someone who likes to go big, and news of his entry into the startup world spawned rumors that Square would soon take over the world.”