Erply, one of the most promising start-ups from Estonia, provide software for small and medium-sized retailers who have physical stores. We have not covered the company for almost a year and meanwhile it has been quitely growing. From 2,000 business customers in March 2010, the company grew to 20,000 retailers who daily process over $2.5 million in transactions, according to the Wall Street Journal. Today Erply announced the launch of a magnetic credit card reader that is also NFC-enabled and is fully integrated with its existing cloud-based software. The device is priced at $50 and Erply will also charge 1.9% transaction fee, which is smaller than what its biggest competitor in the US, Square, charge their customers (2.75% per swipe).

Erply's device is only compatible with iPad at the moment, thought he company promises to make it avaible for the iPhone within a few months. Once connected to the iPad, the device reads customer's credit card's magnetic strip and sends the encrypted data to Erply's inventory management system in the cloud.  Real-time data is generated about the shop's stock and merchandise, making it really easy for a retailer to manage and sell it using just one dashboard. Though to take advantage of the whole software suite, retailers need to cash out an additional $55-$850 a month.

The card reader, just like Erply's software, is most suitable for small and medium-sized retail businesses that need a cost-efficient solution for monetary transactions and inventory management. Companies that offer a similar solution include Square, Intuit and Verifone in US plus iZettle in Europe. Going against competitors like that is a sign of Erply's growing determination to get a considerable share of that market.

Erply's solution (while losing points for not being available on mobile or covering platforms other than iOS), is the only one that is NFC enabled. Near field communication technologies are only starting to be explored by the service industry. By including them in their card reader from the start, Erply is keeping itself one step ahead of the competition. Such vision and ambition should be celebrated.

Erply was founded in 2009 and closed a $2M funding round in 2010 lead by Index Ventures, Redpoint, Marten Mickos, Zack Urlocker, Kenny van Zant, Aydin Senkut, David McClure and the Accelerator Group. The company has offices in New York, London and Tallinn with 32 engineers working across those locations.

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andydeignan August 23, 2011

The reader shown here is a MagTek iDynamo, secured by the MagneSafe™ Security Architecture (MSA)
1) The iDynamo contains a unique encryption key that automatically self-generates one-million successive distinct keys.
2) The iDynamo is built in the USA and by design is tamper resistant and tamper evident.
3) The iDynamo encrypts all the data within the confines of the magnetic head.
4) The iDynamo is capable of device/host mutual authentication.
5) The iDynamo can detect and notify the user when a connection to a genuine host has been established.
6) The iDynamo can manage session security, so that swipes can be time bounded.
7) The iDynamo has the ability to see more data.
8) The iDynamo can also determine if the data on the card has been altered.
9) The iDynamo can generate unique tokens at the point of swipe.