PayPal, owned by eBay, has acquired Stackmob for an undisclosed fee as part of on-going efforts to boost its mobile payment capabilities.

James Barrese (pictured), PayPal’s CTO, enthusiastically praised the San Francisco-based firm in a blog.

“StackMob is best known for its outstanding work in developing a platform that lets developers and companies easily create and manage mobile applications,” he said.

Barrese added that the StackMob acquisition would enhance PayPal’s “technology stack”.

As part of the deal, 18 of StackMob’s engineers will relocate to PayPal’s headquarters in San Jose.

The acquisition should help PayPal boost its payments presence, both online and in physical stores.

“We believe that our work at PayPal will make it easier for developers to create seamless payment solutions that span online, mobile, and in-store experiences,” asserted Ty Amell, StackMob’s CEO.

According to TechCrunch, StackMob raised $7.5 million in Series A funding in 2011, but was struggling to raise a B round, leading to acquisition rumours.

Ebay recently bought online payment firm Braintree for about $800m to strengthen PayPal’s presence on mobile devices

Braintree processes about $4 billion in mobile payments annually.

However, even before the acquisition by eBay, PayPal was hoping to generate more than $20 billion in mobile payment volumes in 2013.