Fintech Stripe secures $ 95 billion blockbuster

Thanks to the new fundraiser, Stripe is now worth more than other startup darlings like Instacart Inc. Globally, it still lags behind Chinese fintech giant Ant Group Co. in valuation.

As a payment processor for startups and fast-growing internet businesses, Stripe has benefited from the pandemic-induced online shopping boom. Stripe customers, including DoorDash Inc.,

Shopify Inc.

and Wayfair Inc.

all have seen soaring demand as consumers diverted spending away from physical establishments.

“We’re bigger now than all of e-commerce [market] That was when we first launched Stripe, ”said Dhivya Suryadevara, CFO of Stripe, in an interview. Stripe was launched in 2010.

During the pandemic, some small businesses were unhappy with the steps Stripe and other payment processors took to protect themselves from possible losses. The maneuvers, which sometimes required companies to wait extra days, or even months, to access the money deposited in their accounts, have intensified the cash flow crisis in many companies.

Stripe does not disclose its payment volumes or financial results. The company said in a statement that it processes payments worth hundreds of billions of dollars a year for millions of businesses around the world and has more than 50 businesses as customers who each use Stripe for process over a billion dollars a year.

Beyond payments, Stripe has added more financial services to the products it offers to its customers. In December, Stripe announced its partnership with banks, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

and Citigroup Inc.

to provide checking accounts and other banking services to merchants.

Investors have long viewed Stripe and other payment companies as a way to gain exposure to a range of fast-growing industries. More recently, however, some have started to question whether the surge in tech stocks fueled by Covid is overdone, and they are starting to move away from popular tech companies to established industries like banks and industrialists.

With this new funding, Stripe plans to expand its European business. The San Francisco-based company recently appointed Dublin as its second headquarters and added former Bank of England Governor Mark Carney to its board of directors.

Closer to his home in California, Stripe has entered the fray with political discourse as other tech giants are floundering. After the pro-Trump riots on Capitol Hill in January, it stopped processing payments for President Trump’s fundraising device.

Write to Peter Rudegeair at [email protected]