American financial services company Stripe has signed agreements for a Series I fundraising of more than $6.5 billion which has put the company’s valuation at $50 billion.
The fundraising round was led by new and existing investors such as General Catalyst, MSD Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Baillie Gifford, Founders Fund, and Thrive Capital, as well as new investors including GIC, Goldman Sachs Asset and Wealth Management, and Temasek.
The payment giant revealed that it would use the funds raised to provide liquidity to current and old employees and address employee withholding tax obligations related to equity awards, resulting in the retirement of Stripe shares that will offset the issuance of new shares to Series I investors. The company also noted that it does not need this capital to run its business.
Speaking on the recent funds raised, Stripe Co-Founder and President John Collison said,
“Over the last 12 years, current and former stripes have helped build foundational economic infrastructure for millions of businesses around the world, and this transaction allows them to access the value they have helped to create. But the internet economy is still young, and the opportunities for the next 12 years will dwarf those of the recent past. There is so much to discover and create. For us, it is now back to work”.
The deal comes against the backdrop of a severely depressed funding environment and the collapse of tech-focused Silicon Valley Bank, which served as a strong banking partner for numerous start-ups and their venture backers. Stripe however disclosed that it had no exposure to SVB.
Investors King understands that the payment giant has recently collaborated with Artificial Intelligence company OpenAI to monetize OpenAI’s flagship products and enhance its platform with GPT-4.
It is interesting to note that seventy-five percent of the leading generative AI companies have reportedly signed up with Stripe to go to market quickly, scale with compliance in mind, and bring their products to many more users worldwide.
As traditional businesses have continued to shift online, Stripe’s enterprise user base has compounded since 2019, and now includes some of the largest global enterprises like BMW, Amazon, Maersk, Ford, and Salesforce. At the same time, Stripe continues to see strong momentum with startups.
One hundred businesses now handle more than $1 billion on Stripe every year. Seventy-five percent of these global businesses use Stripe for more than just payments and over 70% use Stripe to manage operations across multiple countries.
