Are you looking to buy Stripe stock? At the moment, they’re a privately owned company. Therefore, you can’t trade them as of yet. However, the noise for a Stripe IPO is growing louder and louder. In fact, top analysts have said that they believe Stripe could be the biggest IPO in 2021. Whether that’s true or not remains to be seen. Will Strip stock IPO? Hopefully, where there’s smoke there’s fire and it happens.

Is Stripe a Publicly Traded Company?

Right now you can’t buy Stripe stock. There have been rumors of a Stripe IPO happening in 2021. But those rumors are so far unsubstantiated. However, they’re an exciting company and would have many excited investors should they decide to become publicly traded.

They could be more stable than the Coinbase stock IPO that occurred recently. People were incredibly excited for that IPO as anything to do with cryptocurrency gets people going these days.

Here’s All You Need to Know About Stripe Stock

An increasing number of people and businesses around the world have switched to online payment services for sending and receiving money. Especially after the Covid-19 pandemic.

The shift has created a massive opportunity for both established and emerging fintech companies to capitalize on the booming growth in the online payment space.

While most people are only familiar with popular online payment processors such as Square vs PayPal, there’s a rapidly growing fintech startup named Stripe that has been making the headlines lately. 

Brief Overview

Stripe, like PayPal, allows businesses to accept online payments for goods and services. Its products and solutions enable online credit and debit card payment processing. Its customers range from small merchants to big companies such as Amazon, Salesforce, Target, Shopify, and Lyft.

Stripe recently raised $600 million in its latest funding round, with its valuation hitting $95 billion. That makes it the most valuable startup in the history of the U.S. The current valuation translates to a sharp surge of nearly 3-fold when compared to a valuation of about $36 billion in October.

One of the key reasons behind Stripe’s rapid growth is its user-friendly interface. Merchants can easily set up their accounts and start selling online. Millions of enterprises around the world use Stripe to receive payments and send payouts; besides managing their businesses online. Just think of how that’d affect Stripe stock. Their IPO would be out of this world if it moved based off their valuation.

Here’s How It All Started

The history of Stripe dates back to 2010 when two brothers Patrick and John Collison founded the company with the objective of simplifying the process of accepting payments on the web.

Back then, Patrick was working on few side projects and realized how difficult it was to receive payments online. This inspired the brothers to develop a payment system prototype.

They performed their first transaction within two weeks of building the system. In the subsequent months, they showed it to friends and allowed them to interact with it. Their initial growth was mainly spurred by positive word of mouth.

At that time, they weren’t sure of addressing issues like fraud, and processing of payments outside the U.S. They momentarily joined hands with a payment firm but realized that the only way of efficiently handling the complete process was by self-managing all aspects of the system. Since then, they have been controlling everything in-house.

Stripe grew over the years by expanding into newer markets, making strategic partnerships, receiving funds from investors, and introducing new products and payment solutions. We could see Stripe stock continue to grow the company if it goes public.

Notable Events for Stripe Stock

Here are the notable events that happened in Stripe’s journey over the last decade.

Stripe received an investment of around $2 million from Elon Musk and Peter Thiel in 2011 that fueled the company’s initial growth. In 2013, the company acquired chat and task-management app Kickoff.

In 2016, the company launched Stripe Atlas; an unconventional service that facilitates the formation of a company. It is an easy-to-use platform that helps users launch their startup from any part of the globe. While eliminating the need for lengthy and complex paperwork. The startups registered with the Stripe Atlas have so far raised over $2 billion in funding, according to the company.

In 2017, Stripe stepped into Asia by joining hands with major Chinese fintech players WeChat Pay and Alipay. The deal allowed merchants registered on Stripe to receive payments from millions of consumers in China.

In 2018, Stripe introduced few new products including Stripe Billing, Stripe Terminal, Stripe Issuing, and Radar 2.0. Stripe Billing. This allows users to bill consumers with invoices, while Stripe Terminal lets users build their own in-person checkout to receive in-store payments. On the other hand, Stripe Issuing lets online businesses create their own credit and debit cards, while Radar helps in detecting and blocking fraud using machine learning.

In 2020, Stripe introduced banking services by joining hands with banks including Barclays, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs.

Over the past couple of years, Stripe expanded into several countries around the world. It currently operates in more than 35 countries and supports over 135 currencies and payment methods.

Here’s How Stripe Makes Money

Stripe primarily makes money by charging a certain fee on every successful transaction executed on its platform. However, that fee varies according to the payment volume and package subscribed by customers.

Nevertheless, the company’s standard structure is 2.9 percent and 30 cents fixed fee on every successful cash transaction. Meanwhile, the cost is different for other services such as Payouts, Connect, and Terminal. If we get a Stripe stock, we could see a more thorough breakdown for the IPO filing.

How Do You Get a Stripe IPO?

You may be seeing Stripe stock trading on a U.S. stock exchange in the near future. Rival payment companies like PayPal and Square have enjoyed tremendous growth since their IPO. Stripe apparently has all the capabilities to achieve similar growth landmarks after becoming a public entity.

Industry experts believe that Stripe stock will likely go public with a market valuation of more than $100 billion. However, no official date has been disclosed for Stripe IPO. Nevertheless, many believe that the latest funding round of $600 million was perhaps the last time Stripe raised funds before a public listing.

Bottom Line

Stripe has been a key beneficiary of the e-commerce boom post-Covid-19 pandemic. Its processing volume increased to record highs amid a sharp surge in the global e-commerce market last year. Stripe stock is reportedly one of the most desired stocks in the secondary markets where investors purchase equity stakes from insiders and early investors.

The company’s valuation in secondary markets reportedly increased to $115 billion in February. Before decreasing to $90 billion after the latest funding round.

Meanwhile, Stripe intends to use the proceeds from the latest funding to makes investments in its European operations and support the increasing demand for its products in the region. Stripe has a presence in 42 countries. And out of those, 31 are in Europe.

Speaking on the company’s investment plans for Europe, CEO John Collison recently said in a statement, “We’re investing a ton more in Europe this year, particularly in Ireland. Whether in fintech, mobility, retail or SaaS, the growth opportunity for the European digital economy is immense.” And before you go, check out our latest post on Red Bull Stock.