Stripe’s spending splurge continues as it leads $35m raise for Check

Stripe's investment splurge shows no sign of ending with the online payments company leading a $35 million (€28.9 million) funding round for payroll infrastructure start-up Check.

The news comes just days after it emerged the Irish-founded company had led a $102 million investment in online checkout company Fast.

Check is a New York-headquartered company founded by the team who previously established Oyster, a so-called "Netflix for books" that was acquired by Google in a deal valued at $30 million in 2015.

The start-up, which was set-up in 2019, has developed application programming interface (API) technology that allows developers to directly embed payroll in their vertical SaaS, HR, or time-tracking platform.

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"With Check, developers can now build wage payments into their apps just as easily as accepting an online payment," is how co-founder and chief executive Andrew Brown described the technology.

Check has been operating in stealth mode until this week. It has raised $44 million to date.

Stripe and Thrive Capital led the latest round with the latter also previously investing in the company in a $8 million Series A round last year.

The funding round is the second to be led by Stripe this week. On Tuesday it was revealed the company founded by Irish brothers Patrick and John Collison had also led a $102 million raise for Fast, having previously spearheaded a $20 million investment in the start-up last year.

Stripe has stepped up its investments in recent years, with investments in start-ups that include Monzo, Step, Stedi and PayMongo.

It has also made a number of acquisitions, including buying Nigerian start-up Paystack for more than $200 million last October, and Irish company Touchtech Payments for an undisclosed sum in 2019.