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Stripe’s clients include Uber, Target, and Expedia.
Dreamstime
Stripe is fundraising for a financing round that values the digital payments company at more than $100 billion, four banking and private-equity executives familiar with the matter said.
It’s unclear exactly how much the San Francisco company is seeking. One banker said Stripe is targeting $1 billion to $1.5 billion, while others pegged the total as closer to $5 billion. Stripe declined to comment.
Stripe has collected a total of $1.6 billion in funding, according to Crunchbase. The current round comes less than a year since the company’s most recent fundraising. Stripe collected $250 million in September 2019 as part of a financing round that valued it at $35 billion. Investors included General Catalyst, Sequoia Capital, and Andreessen Horowitz. Stripe added another $600 million in April 2020 as part of that funding round.
General Catalyst declined to comment on the current Stripe financing, while Sequoia and Andreessen didn’t respond to messages seeking comment.
Founded in 2010, Stripe produces software that helps businesses accept payments. Customers include
Uber Technologies
(ticker: UBER),
Target
(TGT) and
Expedia
(EXPE). It competes against companies such as PayPal (PYPL) and Square (SQ).
Stripe in October agreed to buy Paystack, which helps businesses in Africa secure payments.
Stripe is one of the most valuable venture-backed fintechs around. At more than $100 billion, its valuation is inching up to near that of
BlackRock (BLK),
the global investment manager, with a market capitalization of near $108 billion. Square, meanwhile, has a market cap of $107 billion.
In the fall, Stripe was reportedly in talks to merge with
Bill Ackman’s
$4 billion blank-check company, Pershing Square Tontine Holdings (PSTH). Ackman held “limited discussions” with Stripe but concluded the company wasn’t mature enough to go public, Bloomberg said in September. Executives for Pershing Square Tontine declined to comment.
Write to Luisa Beltran at [email protected]
