The value of Stripe, an online payment company in Silicon Valley, has soared to $95 billion (approximately 108 trillion won). Facebook and Uber surpassed the value evaluated before listing, making it the most expensive of all unlisted Silicon Valley startups. It is analyzed that the value of online payment companies is also rapidly jumping as the global e-commerce market expands due to the Corona 19 incident. However, some point out that the value of information technology (IT) startups is overvalued.
○“Digital payment boom rises”
According to the Financial Times (FT) on the 15th, Stripe recently raised $600 million in funding and valued the company at $95 billion. Irish Financial Management Agency, Sequoia Capital, Allianz, and Fidelity participated in this investment. FT interpreted it as “the value of Stripe has tripled in less than a year,” and “meaning that the digital payment boom is happening.”
Stripe’s corporate value of $95 billion is higher than the $80 billion that Facebook evaluated just before IPO in 2012. Uber was recognized for its value of 72 billion dollars before listing in 2019. Elon Musk’s space exploration company SpaceX, valued at $74 billion last month, falls short of the Stripe.
Among the world’s unlisted startups, there are only Chinese Bite Dance ($180 billion), the parent company of TikTok, a short video app, and Ant Group ($108 billion), a fintech company that postponed listing due to recent pressure from the Chinese government.
○ Major customers such as Amazon
Stripe was founded in 2010 by Irish brothers Patrick Collison (32) and John Collison (30). These brothers focused on helping e-commerce companies build payment systems with ease. In order to link its competitor PayPal payment system, it has to go through a process of up to 9 steps, but Stripe reduced it to 3 steps. After signing up for a member on the Stripe homepage, simply copy the payment solution source code and paste it on the homepage.
Stripe set a lower payment fee compared to its competitors, increasing corporate customers. Major customers are Amazon, Uber, Instagram, Shopify, Zoom, and Salesforce. As the mobile payment market expanded due to the Corona 19 pandemic, the company size also rapidly increased. In the past year, Stripe has acquired more than 200,000 new corporate customers in Europe alone. “Last year, we processed 5,000 requests for payments and refunds per second,” said John Collison.
○ Investments such as famous venture capital
Early investors in Stripe include PayPal founders Peter Till and Musk. Silicon Valley famous venture capitalists such as Sequoia Capital and Andrewson Horowitz also paid for the stripe.
The company has not yet revealed a clear IPO schedule, but there is a prospect that it will go public next year. This analysis is fueling the recent recruitment of former British central bank governor Mark Carney, as well as financial executives at Amazon and General Motors (GM).
Stripe doesn’t accurately disclose the amount of payment or sales. FT said, “Stripe has a larger payment size than its rival European fintech company Adien.” Adyen processed a payment of 303.6 billion euros (about 412 trillion won) last year, with a market capitalization of 60 billion euros.
Some say that the value of technology companies like Stripe is soaring. There is also an analysis that the recent rise in bond interest rates can have a negative impact on the stock market, and the US government’s $1.9 trillion-dollar economic stimulus plan can bring money back to traditional industries.
Reporter Ahn Jung-rak [email protected]