Confinity

Confinity, Inc. was a Palo Alto software start-up that created PayPal. Max Levchin and Peter Thiel began it in 1998 as Fieldlink, a company making security software to store encrypted data on handheld PDAs, and renamed it Confinity the same year; it was incorporated in California in December 1998.^{Source [6]Source [3]Source [1]}

In mid-1999 Confinity was preparing PayPal as an application for beaming money between handheld devices such as Palm Pilots, using cryptography developed with Stanford professors Dan Boneh and Martin Hellman. In October 1999 it launched PayPal as free, email-driven person-to-person payments, and users could send money to anyone with an email address.^{Source [6]Source [1]}

Thiel was CEO and chairman and Levchin was CTO and a director. Confinity agreed on March 1, 2000 to merge with X.com Corporation and completed the deal on March 30, 2000; X.com was the surviving entity, Confinity's former stockholders held about 46.5% of its voting interest, and the combined company took the name PayPal, Inc. in February 2001.^{Source [1]}

Incorporated in December 1998 and co-founded by Peter Thiel and Max Levchin, with Luke Nosek and Ken Howery among its founders. It merged with X.com in March 2000; X.com was the surviving entity, former Confinity stockholders held about 46.5% of the voting interest, and the combined company was renamed PayPal, Inc. in February 2001.^{Source [1]Source [2]Source [5]}