Chicago-based payment gateway, Braintree announced yesterday that it acquired social payments platform, Venmo, for $26 million in cash and stock.

Venmo is a consumer-facing technology that processes around $10 million in payments monthly. With the acquisition, Braintree will integrate Venmo’s technology into its existing software so that Venmo users can make transactions with their existing account.

The 23-person Venmo team will maintain its peer-to-peer payment platform from its office in New York.

In unrelated news, Braintree was ranked number 415 in the 2012 Inc 500 list. Here are some stats that Inc. published about the payments company:

• It has grown more than 10x since 2008*
• 2011 revenue of $9.9 million
• 2011 employees numbered 60

To learn more about Braintree, watch its FinovateSpring 2011 demo.

*Inc. 500 rankings are based on a 3-yr growth percentage.