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Stripe is looking to eastern Europe and the Mediterranean as it announces five new countries where its services are now available.
As part of continued European expansion driven by the company’s Dublin office, Stripe has announced it’s rolling out in five new countries – the Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Malta. Founded by Limerick brothers Patrick and John Collison, the fintech start-up’s services are now available in 39 countries, 29 of which are in Europe.
Online companies in these new markets can now gain access to Stripe’s entire product range to launch, run and scale their business globally. This, the company said, includes multi-sided marketplaces, billing for subscriptions, fraud detection and prevention, and analytics.
Stripe said that its European growth has been accelerated by the shift from offline to online in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. This, it claimed, is making the need for financial infrastructure and accessibility more important than ever.
“We are excited about bringing Stripe to even more European countries, making payment acceptance and money movement faster and less complicated for everyone,” said Matt Henderson, Stripe’s business lead for Europe, Middle East and Africa. “We are nearing our goal of making Stripe universally available to businesses across the continent.”
Further expansion plans
Stripe had confirmed plans to enter into these new five countries in April following the announcement that the company had raised $600m in an extended Series G round of funding. It brought the company’s total value to $36bn, with plans to use the funding for product development, global expansion and other strategic initiatives.
Speaking last month, John Collison said that Stripe was eager to secure new funding as a result of the uncertainty brought on by the pandemic that could stretch into 2021. The company has approximately $2bn on its balance sheet and has signed a number of partnership deals so far this year with companies including NBC and Mattel.
While still receiving funding itself, Stripe is also investing in other start-ups. In March, it led a Series A funding round worth $20m for a one-click payment solution start-up called Fast.
