Stripe, a leading player in the fintech industry, may soon allow early investors to cash out in a significant transaction. According to Axios, Stripe might enable those who invested in the company 15 years ago to sell their shares to the venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, valuing the company at $70 billion. Although this valuation is lower than the $95 billion peak Stripe achieved in 2021, it is considerably higher than the $50 billion valuation from last year’s fundraising round.
The initial years of the COVID-19 pandemic brought substantial optimism for e-commerce companies like Stripe as consumers increasingly turned to online shopping. Stripe, which provides backend services for numerous e-commerce businesses, anticipated benefiting from this shift and expanded its workforce accordingly. However, these high expectations have since moderated due to inflation, rising interest rates, and new geopolitical challenges, such as the war in Ukraine, complicating fundraising efforts for non-public growth companies.
“The world shifted towards e-commerce almost overnight at the start of the pandemic in 2020,” co-founders Patrick and John Collison wrote in a 2022 memo, announcing a 14% reduction in Stripe’s workforce. “We saw significantly higher growth rates throughout 2020 and 2021 compared to previous years. As a company, we adapted to a new operational model, with our revenue and payment volume tripling. However, the world is shifting again. We now face persistent inflation, energy shocks, higher interest rates, reduced investment budgets, and limited startup funding.”
According to Axios, Sequoia’s offer targets investors who participated in Stripe’s fundraising rounds between 2009 and 2012. Neither Stripe nor Sequoia have publicly commented on the potential deal.