(Bloomberg) – Stripe Inc. With its latest round of financing in less than a year, its valuation nearly tripled to $ 95 billion, making it the most valuable U.S. start-up.
The online payment processing company pulled in $ 600 million in its latest fundraiser, Stripe said in a statement.
The valuation figure is at the top of the range reported by Bloomberg News in November, when Stripe was in talks with investors to increase its value to more than $ 70 billion, with the possibility of pushing it to $ 100 billion. According to CBInsights, the valuation also includes billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Instacart Inc. passed.
Stripe was founded in 2010 by two Irish brothers and sisters: 32-year-old Patrick Collison and his younger brother John, 30. Their net worth rose to $ 11.4 billion each with the latest valuation, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, against $ 4.3 billion in the last round of financing.
The company’s software, which works with Square Inc. and Paypal Holdings Inc. competes, is used by businesses to accept payments. Customers include Amazon.com Inc., Salesforce.com Inc., and Lyft Inc.
Stripe will invest in its European operations, particularly its Dublin headquarters, to support demand and expand its global network of payments and treasury. According to its website, it also has a double headquarters in San Francisco.
Primary investors in Stripe also include the digital investment unit of Allianz Group, Axa SA, Baillie Gifford, Fidelity Management & Research Co., Sequoia Capital and the national treasury agency in Ireland, the company said on Sunday.
Stripe does not really need the money, despite the fundraising, said Dhivya Suryadevara, chief financial officer. “I consider it a little more opportunistic,” she said in an interview Sunday. The company “is extremely capital efficient.”
Stripe was valued at $ 36 billion as recently as April when it raised $ 600 million from investors, including Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital.
“It’s just going to sit on the balance sheet,” Mike Moritz, a partner at Sequoia Capital and a Stripe board member, said in an interview, emphasizing that the money “would just be a rainy day fund – it pays to have a little more to have insurance. ”
Stripe has benefited because some of its customers like Instacart, which started small, have grown into significant companies. For Stripe, “growth has been rapid and perhaps faster than expected,” Moritz said.
Moritz and Suryadevara said Stripe will continue to acquire acquisitions. The CFO is currently not concentrating on an initial public offering, choosing investors who share their long-term view. “The next ten years and beyond are even more exciting,” she added.
Mark Carney, former governor of both the Bank of England and Bank of Canada, joined his board last month. He will help stripe’s efforts to enable more businesses to raise money for emerging carbon removal technologies.
Stripe, which sells software that enables businesses to accept online payments, was a beneficiary of the e-commerce boom accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic. The company recently left to offer checking accounts to businesses through e-commerce providers, and works with banks, including Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Barclays Plc.
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