Stripe, a payments infrastructure provider, has 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). Stripe has hired Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan to advise on the deal.

Many tech firms have seemingly avoided IPOs over the past year, owing to the current volatility impacting the stock market. However, Stripe’s decision may also be influenced by some of its long-standing employees holding restricted stocks that are due to expire.  

Analyst quicktake: The announcement comes on the back of Stripe slashing its internal valuation to USD 63 billion earlier this month (from a USD 95 billion valuation at the time of its March 2021 fundraise), following the laying off of 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. Moreover, Stripe last publicly spoke about a potential IPO in November 2021 , where its co-founder John Collison noted that there was no indication that Stripe would pursue an IPO in the “near future.”