Square Awards Sightglass $10K—Even Though Its CEO Is an Investor

SF-based mobile payment company Square announced the results of its Square Wallet Challenge on Thursday, which awarded $10,000 to 20 small businesses that were deemed the most prolific users of Square Wallet, the company's service that allows customers to pay with their phones. Given the company's roots in SF, it's not surprising that seven local businesses took home the prize, including Cafe Sophie, Ritual, Senor Sisig, La Stazione, Grand Coffee and Philz Coffee. But the seventh winner stood out to us: Sightglass Coffee, which counts Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey (pictured at right) among its investors, received one of the $10,000 prizes. Dorsey's current job? CEO of Square.

We asked a Square rep to comment on the cash exchange between the payment giant and the coffee shop. Her response:

The rules of the contest were that any eligible businesses who accepts Square Wallet to receive payments automatically earned one point for each Square Wallet transaction they accept and received during the contest period. They also earned an additional point each time a Square Wallet purchase was made by a customer who has never previously used Square Wallet to complete a transaction with that merchant. At the end of the contest, Sightglass was one of the 20 businesses with the most points in the U.S...Sightglass is one of our earliest Square customers, and since Square Wallet is a convenient way for customers to get rewarded for frequent visits, coffee shops are a great example of where Square Wallet makes perfect sense. Many coffee shops did well in the contest.