Which online payment service was founded in 1998 by Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, and Luke Nosek? PayPal.
The business began in December 1998 as Fieldlink, founded by Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, and Luke Nosek. It soon became Confinity, initially focusing on security software for handheld devices. When that business struggled, the company shifted toward digital payments and launched the first version of its PayPal service in 1999.
In 2000, Confinity merged with X.com, an online financial-services company founded by Elon Musk and others. The combined business concentrated on online money transfers, and the PayPal name became dominant. PayPal went public in 2002 and was acquired by eBay later that year.
A common mix-up is treating 2000 as PayPal’s founding date, because that was the year of the Confinity-X.com merger. The company’s corporate origin, however, dates to 1998. eBay spun PayPal off as an independent company again in 2015.