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Inching toward possible IPO, Stripe raises $245M on $20B valuation
Payment technology company Stripe Inc. today said it has raised $245 million in new funding on a massive $20 billion valuation as it moves toward a possible initial public offering in 2019 or 2020.
The round was led by Tiger Global Management and included DST Global, Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, Kleiner Perkins, Khosla Ventures, General Catalyst and Thrive Capital.
Founded in 2010, Stripe at its core processes payments on the websites of its customers. Over the years Stripe has added more to the product mix, including a service called Radar that aims to ease the detection of fraudulent activity, a subsidiary called Stripe Issuing that allows customers to issue their own debit cards, and Stripe Terminal, a program for point-of-sale systems and cash registers that are integrated with Stripe payments.
Clients include some of the biggest names in tech, including Facebook Inc., SAP SE, Amazon.com Inc., Uber Technologies Inc., Didi Chuxing Technology Co. Ltd. and Spotify Technology S.A., along with Target Corp. and the National Football League.
The company said it would use the new funding to assist it to expand internationally, starting with a new engineering hub in Singapore that was announced at the same time as the round.
With a $20 billion valuation and the round taking the amount it has raised to $685 million, speculation has once again started as to when Stripe will go public. Stripe Chief Financial Officer Will Gaybrick is on record in 2016 as saying that the company has “no plans” to go public in the foreseeable future, while Chief Executive Officer Patrick Collison (pictured, right, with brother John) reiterated that in April 2017.
“We have no plans to go public,” Collison told Techcrunch in an interview. “We’re fortunate to be in the position that the Stripe business is performing very well and the long-term opportunity is that we’re very optimistic to providing the richer stack to businesses. Strong businesses do not always tend to be dependent on outside funding.”
Such talk may be just that. Stripe is eight years old, and though the average exit time for venture capital investments continues to rise, Stripe is getting long in the tooth as a private entity.
Photo: Stripe
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