Stripe, the US-headquartered digital payment processor backed by corporates Alphabet, Visa and American Express, has begun discussions over a funding round that could value it at up to $70bn, Bloomberg reported yesterday.
The figure will definitely be higher than the $36bn valuation at which the company last raised money, and could possibly reach $100bn, according to people familiar with the matter.
Founded in 2010, Stripe provides technology that allows users to digitally send and receive payments and manage their online businesses. Its business has seen a significant uptick in recent months as the covid-19 pandemic has forced more business online, but it has also taken steps to expand in Africa.
The prospective valuation would make Stripe the world’s second most highly valued venture capital-backed private company, behind China-based digital media group ByteDance.
Stripe’s existing valuation was reached in April this year when it closed an $850m series G round with $600m from internet and technology group Alphabet’s CapitalG unit, adding to earlier capital from Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst and Sequoia Capital.
The round pushed the company’s overall funding to approximately $1.64bn and followed $100m from Tiger Global Management in January 2019 at a $22.5bn valuation.
Tiger Global had led a $245m series F round for the company four months earlier, investing alongside Sequoia Capital, General Catalyst, Andreessen Horowitz, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, DST Global, Khosla Ventures and Thrive Capital.
The 2018 round valued Stripe at $20bn, more than double the $9.2bn valuation at which it had secured $150m in a 2016 series D round co-led by Capital G and General Catalyst that included Sequoia Capital and undisclosed existing backers.
Payment services firm Sumitomo Mitsui Card Company had invested in the company the previous month, adding to a similarly undisclosed amount from peers Visa and American Express, Sequoia Capital and General Catalyst at a reported $5bn valuation in 2015.
Sequoia Capital, General Catalyst, Thrive Capital, Khosla Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz were all among Stripe’s early investors, as were Founders Fund, Redpoint Ventures, SV Angel, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Elad Gil, Chris Dixon and Aaron Levie.
