Hot payments startup Stripe has landed a new round of funding from investors including American Express, Visa and Sequoia Capital, valuing the San Francisco-based company at $5 billion.
The value of the funding was not confirmed, but speculation suggests it is near the $100 million mark. Eye watering valuations aside, the most interesting aspect of the deal is the recruitment of Visa to the Stripe fanbase. The startup says it has signed an agreement with the card scheme to work on digital transactions like website 'buy buttons' and payments security.
Stripe last month released code for e-commerce merchants to add American Express 'buy button' signage to the checkout - a move which enables the card scheme to compete on a more even footing with PayPal.
With Visa onboard, Stripe will not only gain access to a much larger merchant base, it will also be able to grow its business internationally, expanding beyond the 25 countries currently serviced by the company.
"Given the explosive growth of new commerce experiences enabled by a global developer community, Visa is expanding its strategic relationships across the payments ecosystem," says Jim McCarthy, EVP, innovation and strategic partnerships, Visa. "We are very excited to work with Stripe and leverage our combined assets to broaden our offering to new types of merchants and developers globally."
Patrick Collison, CEO, Stripe, adds: "Our partnership with Visa will accelerate our ability to expand to markets around the world, and give developers even more control over the end-to-end experience. We’re very excited about the potential."