Stripe valuation surges to $65bn as IPO speculation grows

28 Feb 2024

Stripe CEO and co-founder Patrick Collison. Image: Stripe

CFO Steffan Tomlinson said that Stripe continues to see ‘strong momentum’ with a range of companies, from new start-ups to established multinationals.

Stripe has been valued at $65bn after signing agreements with investors to provide liquidity to its current and former employees in a tender offer.

The surge in valuation comes as speculation grows around a potential Stripe IPO with the latest tender offer to allow employees to cash out their stock likely providing the fintech giant with more flexibility before going public.

The Irish-founded company dually headquartered in San Francisco and Dublin said that while most funds for the tender offer are being provided by investors, Stripe will also use a portion of its own capital to repurchase shares to “offset dilution” from the company’s employee equity compensation programmes.

Steffan Tomlinson, chief financial officer, said that the valuation comes as Stripe continues to see “strong momentum” with a range of companies, from newly formed start-ups to sophisticated enterprises such as Alaska Airlines, Best Buy, Lotus Cars, Microsoft, Uber and Zara.

“When we first partnered with Stripe in 2010, it was a scrappy payments innovator,” said Roelof Botha, managing partner at Sequoia Capital, one of the company’s many investors.

“More than a decade later, Stripe has evolved beyond payments to set a new standard for financial infrastructure – driving significant revenue growth for its users. The company’s attention to the most minuscule details delivers outsized results.”

Founded by Limerick brothers Patrick and John Collison in 2010, Stripe describes itself as a financial infrastructure platform for businesses. It is one the world’s most well-known fintech companies and is widely regarded as the best example of an Irish start-up success story on the world stage.

Last year, as the company celebrated 10 years in Ireland, it revealed that Irish businesses had processed more than €20bn in payments through Stripe.

Stripe only had a few hundred businesses in Ireland on its payments platform in 2013. Today, the company says tens of thousands of ventures – including Wayflyer, Glofox (which was acquired by a US tech group in 2022), Irish Life, Smyths Toys and even the Gaelic Athletic Association – use its tech as online economic activity continues to grow.

The company had its busiest four-day period ever over the Black Friday weekend in November last year, claiming it processed more than 300m transactions.

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Vish Gain is a journalist with Silicon Republic

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