Stripe

Stripe provides the infrastructure for businesses to build online and app-based payment services using application programming interfaces (APIs). Stripe also offers point-of-sale hardware (in competition with Square and Zettle) through its “Stripe Reader,”(launched  in June 2021), a standalone card scanner. Reader can be integrated with Stripe’s Terminal and the rest of the Stripe ecosystem, thereby allowing users to offer an omnichannel payment solution. 

Stripe also offers commercial card issuing infrastructure, “Stripe Issuing,” for which it charges interchange fees from transactions. The company expanded Stripe Issuing and added charge card features in June 2023 , enabling end-customers to spend on credit terms rather than exclusively through pre-funded accounts.

The company has grown through multiple acquisitions. It expanded its operations to Nigeria in October 2020 by acquiring Lagos-based payment integration service infrastructure provider, Paystack. In May 2021, Stripe acquired Bouncer, a technology provider that authenticates cards to reduce fraud in online transactions, and in October 2021 the company acquired Indian company Recko .

Stripe is present across the globe serving nearly 50 countries (as of October 2022), across the Americas, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. 

Stripe expanded its platform solutions, by launching “ Stripe Tax ” and “ Stripe Identity ”. Stripe Tax automates the calculation and collection of multiple types of taxes for transactions made through the platform, and came on the heels of Stripe acquiring TaxJar, a sales tax software provider, in April 2021. Stripe Identity is a low-code/no-code verification tool for online businesses to prevent fraud, account takeovers, and bad actors. It also launched “ Financial Connections ” in May 2022, for enterprises to connect directly with end customer bank accounts to verify accounts, check balances, and confirm ownership, and “ App Marketplace” to provide access to third-party apps.

In October 2021, Stripe also announced that it plans to offer infrastructure for merchants to accept cryptocurrency payments by forming a new crypto team to build out Web3 (highly decentralized web networks) payment solutions.

Key customers and partnerships

In November 2023, Stripe expanded its partnership with JCB International Co., Ltd. (the international operations subsidiary of JCB Co., Ltd) to support its international expansion plans by leveraging JCB’s card network to facilitate merchant payments across European countries, Singapore, and Hong Kong. As of January 2022, Stripe’s enterprise customers included Shopify, Google, Peloton, Ford , and Amazon, among others. Stripe also enhanced its platform functionality and reach by partnering with leading global financial service companies and payment networks. In December 2020, it expanded the partnership with Goldman Sachs to add more functionality to “Stripe Treasury” (solution to embed financial services to marketplaces) in the US. Stripe also partnered with China’s UnionPay International in August 2021, to complement its Alipay and WeChat pay integrations. This enables Stripe merchants in several markets to accept payments from Chinese customers residing in and outside the mainland.

Stripe has also partnered with leading buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) solutions providers, Klarna and Affirm , to allow merchants using Stripe to offer its US and European customers an option to pay in installments.

Funding and financials  

Stripe reportedly processed transactions worth more than USD 817 billion in 2022, up 26% YoY, with more than 100 companies handling over USD 1 billion in payments annually. Moreover, as of February 2021, Stripe handled over 250 million API requests per day in more than 135 currencies across over 35 countries. The company also reported that around 90% of US adults had purchased products from businesses using Stripe. 

Stripe reduced its internal valuation to USD 63 billion in January 2023 (from USD 95 billion during its March 2021 funding round), following laying off around 14% of its workforce in November 2022. The company noted that the layoff was owing to Stripe being overly optimistic about the internet economy’s growth in 2022 and 2023. In January 2023, the company also reportedly set itself a 12-month deadline to go public , either through a direct listing or a private market transaction (offering a secondary market exit for employees). 

The company subsequently raised USD 6.5 billion in Series I funding, in March 2023, at a USD 50 billion valuation. The funds were nor earmarked for running business operations, and instead should be put toward offering liquidity to employees (current and former) and address employee withholding tax obligations related to equity awards.