Stripe has become a superstar in the start-up industry. Investors are rife with shares, and the value is now estimated to be higher than Facebook’s before its IPO.

In its most recent round of financing, the pay-as-you-go platform, Stripe, has reached a valuation of 95 billion dollars, more than the former upstarts Facebook and Uber before their IPOs.

Stripe, which handles payments for companies, raised a further 600 million dollars from investors. The overall valuation is based on the share of the company the investors received for their money. Stripe was previously regarded as the world’s most valuable unlisted financial start-up (Fintech) and have now steered clear off other competitors.

Stripe intends to use the financial injection to accelerate expansion into other countries, the company announced. Among the lenders are insurers Allianz and Axa, venture capitalist Sequoia, as well as the Irish government’s investment fund.

San Francisco-based Stripe was founded in 2010 by Irish brothers Patrick (32) and John Collison (30):

“We are investing a lot more in Europe this year, especially at our second headquarters in Dublin,” said John Collison.

Stripe also plans to expand its business strongly in Germany this year.

The company is currently active in 42 countries, 31 of which are in Europe and one of which is implanted in Africa’s commercial capital, Nigeria. Stripe handles all types of payments, such as smartphone payments or classic direct debits.

They receive a small portion of the transaction volume as a charge fee. Customers include ride-hailing services Uber and Lyft, food delivery service Deliveroo and Twitter.

At the last financing round in April 2020, Stripe was valued at USD 36 billion. But the corona pandemic has seen a big boost in the online business – and Stripe has also benefited from it.

The new valuation is very high for a company not listed on the stock exchange. Social media giants, Facebook, had reached the 80 billion dollar mark before its 2012 IPO, while ride-hailing platform, Uber, came in at just over 70 billion dollars before the stock placement.

Foothold In Africa

Stripe imprinted its foothold, as well as, extended its encompassing tentacles to Nigeria on October, 15 2020, when they acquired path-finding and epoch-making, fintech startup, Paystack in a record deal exceeding $200 million.

The API-based payment service had been initially dubbed the “Stripe of Africa,” which made the acquisition fitting.

At the time of the investment, Paystack were providing services to over sixty thousand clients including small businesses, larger corporates, fintechs, educational institutions and online betting companies.

The deal is the biggest startup acquisition to date to come out of Nigeria, as well as Stripe’s biggest acquisition to date on a global scale.