Payment processing company Stripe announced signing agreements for a Series I fundraising of over $6.5 billion at a valuation of $50 billion.
Andreessen Horowitz, Baillie Gifford, Founders Fund, General Catalyst, MSD Partners, and Thrive Capital will participate in the funding round alongside new investors such as GIC, Goldman Sachs Asset and Wealth Management, and Temasek.
The Funding
Stripe intends to deploy the freshly raised funds to provide liquidity to current and former employees and address staff withholding tax obligations related to equity awards, resulting in the retirement of company shares that will offset the issuance of new ones to Series I investors.
Stripe said in a press release that it does not require this capital to run its business. Talking about the latest funding, John Collison, co-founder and president of the payment processor, weighed in on how employees, both current and former, helped the foundational economic infrastructure for more than a decade and added,
“And this transaction gives them the opportunity to access the value they’ve helped create. But the internet economy is still young, and the opportunities of the next 12 years will dwarf those of the recent past. There’s so much to discover and to create. For us, it’s now back to work.”
The latest development comes amidst a difficult funding environment. Stripe has its own share of pitfalls as a result of last year’s dwindling tech stocks. The startup slashed its team by 14%, citing “stubborn inflation, energy shocks, higher interest rates, reduced investment budgets, and sparser startup funding.”
Tryst With Crypto
The internet payment company’s tryst with the digital asset industry dates back to 2015, when it announced its plans to accept Bitcoin. However, the service lasted only for three years due to concerns over price volatility as well as transactional inefficiencies.
In April 2022, the San Francisco-based fintech company unveiled a new pilot program in partnership with Twitter to enable a small group of creators to send and receive payments in USDC stablecoin via its payment platform, Connect.
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