Airbnb, Uber, Slack, but not Stripe. The online payments specialist does not want to follow the other Californian “runaways” – these companies valued more than $ 10 billion – towards the path of the stock market this year. “We will not do IPOs. We are in no hurry and favor a long-term perspective, “says John Collison, president and co-founder of fintech.
Despite its positive cash flow, the startup created eight years ago continues to use venture capital (VC) funds to accelerate its growth. Several of them returned to the pot in September, with an investment of 245 million dollars, boosting its valuation from 9 to 20 billion dollars.
A popular tool for the new economy – VTC, delivery applications, etc. -, Stripe seduces actors bigger and bigger. Last year, Uber left its competitor Braintree to use its solution. During the year, Stripe also convinced Google, Booking and Spotify to use its services.
At the heart of its success, an interface consisting of a few lines of code that business developers integrate into their sites and mobile applications to allow their customers to pay in one click. The tool also makes it easy to adjust suppliers and freelancers. Stripe is paid by charging a commission on transactions.
Twelve new countries
The company, which has customers in twenty-six countries and employs more than 1,500 employees, is now accelerating outside the United States. It intends to expand its presence to a further 12 countries during the year. “We are focusing on Europe and Asia,” says Billy Alvarado, director of business development.
The company has just launched a beta version in India and wants to expand to all European countries, while it is present only in the west of the continent at the moment. She is recruiting for her engineering department in Dublin and opening another one in Singapore in September. Stripe does not have access to the Chinese market but is used by the VTC Didi Chuxing for payments from its travelers and drivers outside of China.
The company also started to enter the African market via an investment in August in Paystack, a young Nigerian rookie competitor. Asked about the use of other acquisitions, John Collison says “it’s a possibility.”
The company is trying to accelerate its international expansion but faces many barriers. “Money on the Internet is still very local and therefore complex. Twenty years after the launch of the Internet, there is no lingua franca e-commerce, “says Billy Alvarado.
Point-of-sale software in store
The society also multiplies the service layers. It offers anti-fraud, data analysis and billing software. It reformulated the latter for large companies in April and intends to “sell more aggressively in Europe in the next six months,” said Claire Hugues Johnson, the operational director.
Above all, she is starting to expand her offer off of online trading. In September, she launched in-store sales point-of-sale software. A land on which is located the Californian Square, whose payment terminal coupled with software is prized by small businesses.
“We’re talking to technology companies, not restaurants or cafes like Square,” says Stripe’s chief financial officer. Its first customers are online businesses such as eyewear manufacturer Warby Parker and the brand of makeup Glossier, which are now increasing store openings.
The competition between the two companies located a few kilometers away is becoming stronger as Square has just launched software allowing its customers to accept payments within their mobile applications.
Also published on Medium.