Stripe now boasts a whopping $35 billion pre-money valuation after the company landed an additional $250 million from investors.
The electronic payments firm made the announcement in a press release on Thursday, saying the funds came from investment firms including Sequoia, General Catalyst, Andreessen Horowitz, among others.
Stripe, which has raised close to $1.2 billion in the last nine years, is now more valuable than other Silicon Valley firms such as Airbnb and Palantir Technologies, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Founded in 2010, Stripe continues to benefit from growth in online payments and has previously attracted funding from Google’s venture arm Capital G, venture capitalist Peter Thiel, and Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) chief executive Elon Musk, among others.
Stripe intends to use the $250 million investment to accelerate international expansion, grow its product suite, and extend its enterprise capabilities.
“Even now, in 2019, less than eight percent of commerce happens online. We’re investing now to build the infrastructure that’ll power internet commerce in 2030 and beyond. If we get it right, we can help the internet fulfill its potential as an engine for global economic progress,” said Stripe President and Co-founder John Collison.
Stripe had a valuation of $22.5 billion in January after it pulled in $100 million in funding from Tiger Global Management. The San Francisco-based company handles billions of dollars in transactions each year.
Some of its customers include: Deliveroo, Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN), Wayfair (NYSE: W), Uber Technologies (NYSE: UBER), Twilio (NYSE: TWLO), The RealReal (NASDAQ: REAL) and Booking.com, among others.
Stripe is currently present in 34 countries and intends to take that figure to 40 in the coming months. The company employs more than 2,000 employees globally and recently bought Touchtech Payments, an Irish fintech startup that works with financial institutions to help them manage and build Strong Customer Authentication (SCA).
Last week, Stripe announced Stripe Capital – a new corporate credit card for businesses. The card will be available as both a physical or virtual card, and will be free with no late or annual fees. Customers will be required to pay off their balance each month and Stripe will generate revenues off the interchange fee.
CNBC quoted Collison as saying that Stripe has “no plans” of going public right away. “We’re very happy as a private company. We’re quite early in this opportunity,” the CEO told the network.
