By Adedapo Adesanya
Web payments firm, Stripe, which acquired Nigerian company, Paystack last year, has raised a fresh $600 million funding round to raise its valuation to $95 billion and become the most valuable private company Silicon Valley has produced.
The latest fundraise includes primary investors such as Allianz X, Axa, Baillie Gifford, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Sequoia Capital, and Ireland’s National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA).
The Irish company says it 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.
Speaking on its new vision, Mr John Collison, president of Stripe said, “We’re investing a ton more in Europe this year, particularly in Ireland. Whether in fintech, mobility, retail, or Software as a Service (SaaS), the growth opportunity for the European digital economy is immense.”
On his part, Mr Dhivya Suryadevara, Stripe’s chief financial officer said, “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.”
How the company started
Stripe was founded in 2010 by brothers, Patrick and John Collison. The company already employs around 300 staff in Dublin, which acts as its international headquarters, and 3,000 globally in 14 offices, with operations in 43 countries.
Stripe currently counts more than 50 companies that each process over $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 firm plans to double down on its enterprise capabilities in 2021, connecting with ERP systems and expanding to millions of more businesses in Brazil, India, Indonesia, Thailand, and the UAE.
Stripe, which takes a cut of each transaction it processes, started out selling payments services to developers at other tech start-ups, allowing it to piggyback on some of the world’s fastest-growing companies.
Customers now include Zoom, Uber, Shopify, Instacart, and Deliveroo, Instagram, among others.
