Stripe Raises $245M On A $20B Valuation

Stripe, the payments startup, has raised $245 million in a new round of venture funding, giving the company a valuation of $20 billion.

According to a report in a tech outlet, citing the payments company, the round of fundraising was led by Tiger Global Management and included new investors DST Global and Sequoia. Existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Kleiner Perkins, Khosla Ventures, General Catalyst and Thrive Capital also participated in the round. According to the report, the company plans to use the funding to hire more employees for its global engineering team.

“We have no plans to go public,” said John Collison, co-founder of Stripe, 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.”

Stripe’s latest fundraising also underscores the strong environment for startups to raise money and garner huge valuations. As venture capitalists and private-equity firms are raising billions of dollars, they are looking to put their money to work with fast-growing startups. With Stripe boasting millions of customers – including big names like Google and Uber – it’s not surprising that VCs and PE firms want to invest in it. Currently, the company is in 130 markets for acceptance and 25 countries for originating charges, noted the report.

“We believe in the contingency of progress,” Stripe CEO and Co-founder Patrick Collison noted in a statement. “Better global payments infrastructure will increase economic output, encourage entrepreneurship and help upstarts compete with incumbents. By bringing Stripe into more markets and building out our capabilities for companies of all sizes, we hope to accelerate innovation around the world.”