Mar 16, 2023

Share Share Stripe now valued at $50bn – raises funding to spearhead enterprise growth and plans to address employee liquidity. Digital payments player Stripe has raised a Series I round of more than $6.5bn (€6.15bn), which values the company at $50bn (€47bn). Lead investors in the latest round include existing Stripe shareholders Andreessen Horowitz, Baillie Gifford, Founders Fund, General Catalyst, MSD Partners, and Thrive Capital—as well as new investors including GIC, Goldman Sachs Asset and Wealth Management, and Temasek. “The internet economy is still young, and the opportunities of the next 12 years will dwarf those of the recent past. There’s so much to discover and to create” E-commerce powerhouse Stripe said that funds raised will be used to provide liquidity to current and former employees and address employee withholding tax obligations related to equity awards, resulting in the retirement of Stripe shares that will offset the issuance of new shares to Series I investors. Stripe does not need this capital to run its business. Tech is ingrained in the future of business Stripe last raised funding of $600m in March 2021 which at the time valued the business at $95bn. Like many tech businesses, the downturn in tech has forced many firms like Stripe to reduce their valuations. Nevertheless digital tech is embedded in every kind of industry and the business founded by John and Patrick Collison has been focused on growing its enterprise user base and customers now include giants like Amazon, Ford, Salesforce, BMW and Maersk. “Over the last 12 years, current and former Stripes have helped build foundational economic infrastructure for millions of businesses around the world, and this transaction gives them the opportunity to access the value they’ve helped create,” said John Collison, co-founder and president of Stripe. “But the internet economy is still young, and the opportunities of the next 12 years will dwarf those of the recent past. There’s so much to discover and to create. For us, it’s now back to work.” Although not technically an Irish company because it was founded in San Francisco, Stripe has Irish founders and employs circa 1,000 people in Dublin. Stripe was founded in San Francisco 2009 when CEO Patrick Collison was just 22 and his brother John was 19. Prior that the brothers who hail from Nenagh but as teenagers living in Limerick established a start-up in 2007 called Shuppa that later became known as Auctomatic. They sold Auctomatic for $5m when they were just 19 and 17 respectively. 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.