Stripe has hit a $159bn valuation, according to a recent letter from company founders.
Irish fintech giant Stripe is considering acquiring some or all of PayPal, reports Bloomberg, citing insiders.
According to the publication, Stripe has already expressed preliminary interest in a potential acquisition of the US payments company or some of its assets. Stripe declined to respond to queries put forth by SiliconRepublic.com. PayPal has not yet responded.
PayPal share prices shot up by around 6.74pc since Bloomberg first reported the story yesterday (24 February).
The US company, which went public in 2002, has a market capitalisation of $43.2bn. The 2010-founded Stripe was valued at $159bn earlier this week. Stripe’s co-founders are seemingly in no rush to take the company public.
Founded in the late 1990s, PayPal has struggled to modernise against emerging rivals in the payments space such as Apple and Google.
Earlier this month, PayPal snatched HP’s CEO Enrique Lores to replace Alex Chriss, who struggled to revitalise the company after being hired during the post-pandemic period when faced with low trading volume and newer fintech rivals.
However, the executive switch-up did not sway investor confidence after the company missed revenue expectations in the quarter past, sending share prices down by 20pc. Company shares have dropped more than 80pc over the last five years.
Stripe, however, has remained “robustly profitable”, according to a letter from the founding brother-duo Patrick and John Collison. The company is investing heavily in product development and making strategic acquisitions that include programmable wallet company Privy, stablecoin orchestration platform Bridge and Metronome, which “powers the intricate usage-based billing models used by companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Confluent and Nvidia”.
In September, Stripe launched a joint crypto venture called Tempo, which reportedly raised $500m at a $5bn valuation just weeks after coming out from stealth. In November, Swedish fintech giant Klarna become the first bank to launch a stablecoin on Tempo with KlarnaUSD. The coin is set to launch this year.
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