Pre-IPO pedia | PayPal's rival Stripe, a unicorn valued at nearly $100 bln

Moomoo IPO Buzz joined discussion · Jan 27, 2022 04:24

Pre-IPO pedia | PayPal's rival Stripe, a unicorn valued at nearly $100 bln

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Digital payments company Stripe, is one of the most anticipated listings in years and among the biggest private companies to ever go public.

Stripe is an Irish-American financial services and software as a service (SaaS) company dual-headquartered in San Francisco, United States and Dublin, Ireland.

The company primarily offers payment processing software and application programming interfaces (APIs) for e-commerce websites and mobile applications.

Business Overview

The company is founded by Irish entrepreneur brothers John and Patrick Collison, in 2009. Already, the Collisons each have a net worth of $11.4 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Internally, they set the goal is to increase the GDP of the internet---to bring more businesses online worldwide.

The Collisons in their early 20s have a decidedly bold mission: to become the next PayPal. It's interesting that the PayPal competitor was backed by PayPal founders Peter Thiel and Elon Musk.

In 2011, the company received investment of $2 million including from PayPal co-founders Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, Irish entrepreneur Liam Casey, and venture capital firms Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and SV Angel.

Source: Official website

Stripe is a suite of payment APIs that powers commerce for online businesses of all sizes.

The company grew quietly but quickly, offering services worth hundreds of billions to companies around the world. Its customer base now includes giants like Amazon.

The pandemic helped boost their popularity, and the company's investments in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning helped them take on new business with ease.

Source: Official website

The Valuation and IPO rumors

Last valued at nearly $100 billion, Stripe is in early discussions with investment banks about going public as soon as this year, according to Bloomberg.

Stripe raised $600 million in March at a valuation of $95 billion. That makes it one of the most valuable U.S. startups globally alongside TikTok parent ByteDance Ltd, according to data provider CB Insights.

Stripe’s investors include Allianz SE , Axa SA, Baillie Gifford, Fidelity Management & Research Co., Sequoia Capital and Ireland’s National Treasury Management Agency.

According to CNBC, its co-founder John said in August that Stripe is “very happy as a private company,”. Then the PayPal competitor was reportedly talking to investment banks in September about a market debut this year that could push the fintech firm past a $100 billion valuation according to Forbes. The market predicts thatiIf founders decide to take the plunge, Stripe would easily become one of the largest IPOs to hit the market.

PayPal and Stripe

PayPal and Stripe are two of the most well-known names in payment processing. People often seeking advices in distinguishing and comparing the two digital payment giants. It seems that PayPal is one of the more recognized names in e-commerce, which ensures customers will feel safe purchasing products or services. And Stripe also earn more customers from some other perspectives.

For example, according to Forbes Advisor, PayPal would be a good choice If the client is a small business that’s just getting started and is looking for a way to process payment online, for PayPal is easy to set up, does not have any start-up fees and does not require a contract.

On the other side, Stripe can be a better choice if the business is more established and the customer want to customize the shopping cart checkout process so that it is integrated with the brand when the firm have the developer skills.