Paystack’s Parent, Stripe, Raises $600m In A Fresh Round to Reach $95bn Valuation

Stripe, which builds economic infrastructure for the internet, announced on Sunday it has raised a $600 million funding round that puts its valuation at $95 billion.

The round was graced by many investors, including Allianz X, Axa, Baillie Gifford, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Sequoia Capital, and Ireland’s National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA).

The $600 million round has put the payment company above SpaceX and Instacart, whose valuation is placed at $74 billion and $39 billion respectively. Stripe has thus become the most valuable private company in Silicon Valley.

“The company will use the capital to invest in its European operations, and its Dublin headquarters in particular, support surging demand from enterprise heavyweights across Europe, and expand its Global Payments and Treasury Network,” Stripe said in a statement.

Stripe recently acquired Nigeria’s fintech startup, Paystack for $200 million, underscoring its determination to become a global brand. Although it’s still far behind other giants in the online payment industry, its $95 billion valuation makes a bold statement.

It was also named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Merchant Payments Providers, Q3 2020, achieving the highest scores of any company ranked.

Having fully established in the United States, the company has been taking investment to other parts of the world to secure more market share.

John Collison, President and co-founder of Stripe said Europe has become a lucrative destination for companies, and Stripe plans to cash in on the boom of its digital economy.

“We’re investing a ton more in Europe this year, particularly in Ireland. Whether in fintech, mobility, retail or SaaS, the growth opportunity for the European digital economy is immense,” he said.

Of the 42 countries in which Stripe powers businesses today, 31 are in Europe. And many of the continent’s largest and fastest growing companies are building on the platform.

Axel Springer, Jaguar Land Rover, Maersk, Metro, Mountain Warehouse and Waitrose have all recently turned to Stripe to grow and diversify their online revenue, or move faster on their transformation projects. Meanwhile, Europe’s hypergrowth companies such as Deliveroo (UK), Doctolib (France), Glofox (Ireland), Klarna (Sweden), ManoMano (France), N26 (Germany), UiPath (Romania), and Vinted (Lithuania) all build on Stripe to compete on the global stage.

Stripe now counts more than 50 category leaders—companies processing each more than $1 billion annually—as customers. Enterprise revenue is now both Stripe’s largest and its fastest growing segment, more than doubling year over year, the company said.

Stripe said it will double down on enterprise capabilities, particularly its customer success teams, to help even larger businesses like Twilio or Zapier significantly increase their revenue.

“We will also invest in our global expansion to help companies such as Glofox or MATCHESFASHION increase their market opportunity. And through partnerships with enterprise solutions like Salesforce Commerce Cloud we will make it even easier for large multinationals around the world to switch to Stripe,” said Mike Clayville, Stripe’s Chief Revenue Officer.

Stripe said it has built programmable infrastructure for global money movement, known as its Global Payments and Treasury Network, as well as a growing roster of products and services atop that foundation, including Billing, Capital, Connect, Issuing, Radar, Terminal and Treasury.

Only 14% of commerce takes place online today, despite the global economy accelerating its shift to online in 2020. Stripe’s aim is to grow the GDP of the internet, making it easy for ambitious companies everywhere to grow their business.

The company said it will continue to build its Global Payments and Treasury Network, further expanding its suite of software and services to help ambitious businesses drive more revenue in 2021. And Stripe services will also soon be available to millions more businesses in Brazil, India, Indonesia, Thailand and the UAE.

“We’re investing in the infrastructure that will power internet commerce in 2030 and beyond. The pandemic taught us many things about society, including how much can be achieved—and paid for—online, but the internet still isn’t the engine for global economic progress that it could be. While Stripe already processes hundreds of billions of dollars per year for millions of businesses worldwide, the opportunity ahead is much larger for Stripe than it was when the company was started 10 years ago,” ,” said Dhivya Suryadevara, Stripe’s Chief Financial Officer.