Stripe secures further $1bn in investment - reports

Stripe has secured a further $1billion (€830 million) in investment, according to media reports that indicate the company recently offered investors the chance to purchase shares from early backers and employees past and present.

The news, which has not been confirmed by the company, comes as Stripe continues to expand beyond the online payments space with the launch this week of a new tool that helps businesses’ security systems verify user identitites.

A Wall Street Journal report published late on Monday indicated that Stripe received bids amounting to more than $4 billion for what was described as “sizeable shares” in the company from existing shareholders.

However, only about $1 billion of the bids were filled, the newspaper reported, with suggestions that some shareholders hesitated about selling stock amid talk of a possible public listing later this year or in 2022.

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Mutual fund giant Capital Group, venture capital firm Sequoia, e-commerce company Shopify and buyout firm Silver Lake were among those to make investments, however.

Stripe, which was founded by Limerick brothers Patrick and John Collison in 2010, became the most valuable private company in Silicon Valley earlier this year after a new fundraising round in March that valued it at $95 billion.

The online payments company has seen demand for its products soar during the coronavirus pandemic with over 200,000 companies signing up to Stripe since the crisis began in March 2020.

Stripe on Monday announced Stripe Identity, a new tool that makes identity verification as effortless for a business as payment acceptance. The company said it is the first self-serve tool of its kind, allowing any online business to begin verifying the identities of their users in just a few minutes, with no code required.

The architecture powering Stripe Identity was developed over the past decade by the company for its own use and has already helped verify the identities of millions of merchants around the world as part of the payments firm’s onboarding and anti-fraud checks.

"We know from experience how much work it takes to build a rigorous and secure system for global identity verification," said Delia Pawelke, head of global risk strategy and onboarding policy.

“With Stripe Identity, we’re making our advanced compliance infrastructure available to all of our users. For an online business, verifying someone’s identity is now as easy as accepting a payment.”

The new tool is just one of a number of new products launched by Stripe this year. The products include Stripe Tax, which has been developed at the company’s Dublin-based engineering hub.