Stripe valued at $95bn making it one of the most valuable start-ups

A fresh fundraising round for Stripe Inc. has made the financial-tech company one of the world’s most-valuable startups.

Stripe said on Sunday that it raised $600 million from a group of investors that included Ireland’s National Treasury Management Agency, insurers Allianz SE and AXA SA and investment managers Baillie Gifford & Co. and Fidelity Investments. The round valued Stripe at $95 billion, more than 2½ times the valuation it attained in a 2019 fundraising round.

Thanks to the new fundraising, Stripe is now worth more than other startup darlings like Instacart Inc. Globally, it still trails the Chinese fintech giant Ant Group Co. in terms of valuation.

As a payment processor to startups and fast-growing internet companies, Stripe benefited from the pandemic-induced boom in online shopping. Stripe customers including DoorDash Inc., Shopify Inc. and Wayfair Inc. all experienced a surge in demand as consumers shifted their spending away from bricks-and-mortar establishments.

“We’re bigger now than the entire e-commerce [market] was when we first started Stripe,” Dhivya Suryadevara, Stripe’s chief financial officer, said in an interview. Stripe launched in 2010.

Stripe has been considered a candidate to go public. Coinbase, another financial technology start-up, filed to go public later this month in a transaction that some expect could hit $100 billion. Robinhood, a stock trading app, has also seen its valuation surge in the pandemic.

Stripe said in an announcement that it planned to use the money to expand in Europe, including its office in Dublin. The company’s sibling founders, John Collison, 30, and Patrick, 32, were born in Ireland.

In a statement, John Collison, Stripe’s president, said the company would focus heavily on Europe this year. “The growth opportunity for the European digital economy is immense,” he said.

The company, which got its start working with start-ups and small businesses, will also invest in building more tools to help larger businesses handle payments. It counts 50 businesses that process more than $1 billion a year as customers.