SCVNGR/LevelUp

SCVNGR is location based gaming app founded by Seth Priebatsch. He developed SCVNGR app when he was a freshman at Princeton in 2008. He is also known to have built plenty of buzz his vision of adding a game layer on top of the world.

Though SCVNGR did not do well it was the following app that created much hype and established Priebatsch as an entrepreneur. LevelUp is a mobile payment network which was launched in early 2011 and instantly raised about $21 million in its funding.

The mobile payment market has great competitors like Google wallet and Square but still LevelUp has managed to be the best with its unique initiatives like by eliminating interchange fees and instead earning money for bringing in customers. The company has around 3,800 merchants who accept mobile payments via LevelUp. The founder boasts that it adds around 15,000. "It's gone from being an unknown player to the second largest mobile payment network in the country, behind Starbucks," says Priebatsch.