This Year's Major US IPO 'Stripe' Surpasses Facebook and Uber in Valuation

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Jae-hee] Stripe, the largest digital trading platform in the United States and one of the most innovative fintech companies, has been valued higher than Facebook and Uber just before their IPOs.

According to major foreign media on the 14th (local time), Stripe's valuation was estimated at $95 billion (approximately 108 trillion KRW). Recently, Stripe attracted $600 million in investments from the Irish Financial Management Authority, Allianz Insurance, Fidelity Securities, AXA General Insurance, and private equity firm Sequoia Capital, leading to a revaluation of its corporate value. This is a threefold increase compared to the $36 billion valuation at the beginning of last year. It has already surpassed the valuations Facebook ($80 billion) and Uber ($72 billion) achieved just before their listings on the New York Stock Exchange, as well as SpaceX, Elon Musk's private space exploration company, which was valued at $74 billion last month.

Founded in 2009 by Irish brothers Patrick Collison and John Collison, Stripe has been growing rapidly as the e-commerce market expanded swiftly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the outbreak last year, more than 200,000 new companies in Europe have joined the platform. Founder John Collison stated, "Last year, we processed nearly 5,000 transaction requests per second."

Stripe's rise as the most notable company in Silicon Valley is not merely due to luck. It offers a simpler system than PayPal, which holds a dominant position in online payment systems, and has gained popularity among corporate clients by reducing card transaction fees to about half per transaction.

Riding this growth, Stripe plans to hire over 1,000 more employees at its Dublin office over the next five years. Additionally, it intends to launch operations in Brazil, India, and Indonesia by the end of this year.

With its valuation soaring and following last year's recruitment of Divya Suryadevara, General Motors (GM) CFO, and Mike Clayville from Amazon Web Services, Stripe has recently hired Mark Carney, former Governor of the Bank of England, fueling speculation in the industry that Stripe's initial public offering (IPO) may be imminent. Typically, startups expanding their financial expertise are seen as a precursor to an IPO. Stripe has not commented on its IPO plans.

Meanwhile, Stripe ranked first in the innovation companies category hosted by CNBC last year.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.