Confinity Inc. is best known as the creator of PayPal. It was founded in December 1998 by Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, and Luke Nosek, initially as a Palm Pilot payments and cryptography company.[1] Many of Confinity's initial recruits were alumni of The Stanford Review, also co-founded by Peter Thiel, and most early engineers hailed from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, recruited by Max Levchin. Early investors included Nokia Ventures, Deutsche Bank, and Bell Melton, the founder of CyberCash.[2]
Confinity's second office, 165 University Avenue in Palo Alto, California, is also known for being the former office of Google and Logitech.[3]
Confinity launched its milestone product, PayPal in late 1999.[4] Confinity merged with X.com, founded by Elon Musk, in March 2000.[5] The merged company became known as X.com because this was thought to be a name with broader long-term potential than Confinity or PayPal. However, surveys eventually showed that a majority of consumers considered the name X.com vague and potentially pornographic and preferred that the company simply be called PayPal. After a corporate restructuring, the company adopted the name PayPal Inc.
After an IPO, the company was purchased by eBay.