Stripe raises $600M at $95B valuation to expand Europe ahead of IPO
San Francisco and Dublin based Stripe, which builds payment infrastructure for the internet, has announced that it has raised a $600 million funding round at a staggering $95 billion valuation. Investors in the round include Allianz X, Axa, Baillie Gifford, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Sequoia Capital, and Ireland’s National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA).
The company said it will use the capital to invest in its European operations, and its Dublin headquarters in particular, to support surging demand from enterprise heavyweights across Europe, and expand its Global Payments and Treasury Network.
Stripe has generally been fairly tight-lipped about its valuation and going-public plans. Its last reported valuation was about a year ago, in April 2020, when it raised funds at a $36 billion valuation. Its near-tripling in valuation over the past year certainly makes sense, when looking at larger rival PayPal whose shares are up about 150% over the same period. PayPal now carries a market capitalization of $293 billion.
While Stripe hasn’t said formally that it plans to go public, there is much Wall Street talk and rumors being bandied about regarding a Stripe IPO in 2021. Its sheer size takes it out of SPAC combination talks, leaving either a traditional IPO or direct listing as options.
Of the 42 countries in which Stripe powers businesses today, 31 are in Europe. And many of the continent’s largest and fastest growing companies are building on the platform.
Stripe noted that Axel Springer, Jaguar Land Rover, Maersk, Metro, Mountain Warehouse and Waitrose have all recently turned to Stripe to grow and diversify their online revenue, or move faster on their transformation projects. Meanwhile, Europe’s hypergrowth companies such as Deliveroo (UK), Doctolib (France), Glofox (Ireland), Klarna (Sweden), ManoMano (France), N26 (Germany), UiPath (Romania), and Vinted (Lithuania) all build on Stripe to compete on the global stage.
“We’re investing a ton more in Europe this year, particularly in Ireland,” said John Collison, President and co-founder of Stripe. “Whether in fintech, mobility, retail or SaaS, the growth opportunity for the European digital economy is immense.“
“Stripe is an accelerator of global economic growth and a leader in sustainable finance. We are convinced that, despite making great progress over the last 10 years, most of Stripe’s success is yet to come” said Conor O’Kelly, CEO of NTMA. “We’re delighted to back Ireland’s and Europe’s most prominent success story, and, in doing so, to help millions of other ambitious companies become more competitive in the global economy.”
Stripe said it now counts more than 50 category leaders—companies processing each more than $1 billion annually—as customers. Enterprise revenue is now both Stripe’s largest and its fastest growing segment, more than doubling year over year.
“Most people underappreciate Stripe’s global scale and leading ability to serve the most complex enterprise customers,” said Timothy Chiodo Head of Payments and Fintech Research at Crédit Suisse. ”Stripe’s global scale and market reach continues to expand and they are a now a leader (and gaining meaningful share) in the enterprise segment.”
“In 2021, we will double down on our enterprise capabilities, particularly our customer success teams, to help even more large businesses like Twilio or Zapier significantly increase their revenue,” said Mike Clayville, Stripe’s Chief Revenue Officer. “We will also invest in our global expansion to help companies such as Glofox or MATCHESFASHION increase their market opportunity. And through partnerships with enterprise solutions like Salesforce Commerce Cloud we will make it even easier for large multinationals around the world to switch to Stripe.”
Stripe has built programmable infrastructure for global money movement, known as its Global Payments and Treasury Network, as well as a growing roster of products and services atop that foundation, including Billing, Capital, Connect, Issuing, Radar, Terminal and Treasury.
“We’re investing in the infrastructure that will power internet commerce in 2030 and beyond,” said Dhivya Suryadevara, Stripe’s Chief Financial Officer. “The pandemic taught us many things about society, including how much can be achieved—and paid for—online, but the internet still isn’t the engine for global economic progress that it could be. We’re laser focused on helping ambitious businesses grow faster. While Stripe already processes hundreds of billions of dollars per year for millions of businesses worldwide, the opportunity ahead is much larger for Stripe than it was when the company was started 10 years ago.”
In 2021, Stripe said it will continue to build its Global Payments and Treasury Network, further expanding its suite of software and services to help ambitious businesses drive more revenue. Stripe will also soon be available to millions more businesses in Brazil, India, Indonesia, Thailand and the UAE.
Only 14% of commerce takes place online today, despite the global economy accelerating its shift to online in 2020. Stripe’s mission is to grow the GDP of the internet, making it easy for ambitious companies everywhere to grow their business.