US-based digital payment tech provider Stripe upped the size of its series G round to $850m after it scored an additional $600m from a host of investors featuring GV, the corporate venturing unit of internet conglomerate Alphabet. The remaining investors in the extension round included venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst and Sequoia Capital – all three having already taken part in its first $250m close in September last year. The funding was reportedly provided at the same $35bn pre-money valuation and it is meant to support growth in the company’s operations as it deals with large amounts of offline commerce migrating online due to the lockdown measures related to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Founded in 2010, Stripe has developed a mobile platform that enables online merchants to accept payments and oversee their businesses more effectively by providing assistance with functions such as fraud detection, revenue management and international expansion.
The company is part of the larger payment tech space which has received much attention from corporate investors over the past decade, as shown on our GCV Analytics historical bar chart below. The number of corporate-backed deals in this category reached a peak last year (166 rounds), while the total estimated capital in such rounds hit a maximum of $7.9bn in 2016.
