“Record-Breaking Employee Stock-Sale Deal Boosts Fintech Powerhouse Stripe’s Valuation to $65B”

Payments infrastructure giant Stripe announced today that it has reached agreements with investors to offer liquidity to both current and former employees through a tender offer, valuing the company at a whopping $65 billion.

The valuation marks a significant 30% increase compared to Stripe’s value last March, when it raised $6.5 billion in Series I funding at a $50 billion valuation. However, it is still lower than the company’s impressive $95 billion valuation from March 2021.

A spokesperson from Stripe declined to provide further comment, but a source familiar with the company’s internal operations revealed that Stripe and its investors have committed to purchasing over $1 billion in shares from current and former employees.

Some noteworthy details:

• The company’s impressive list of customers includes major names such as Alaska Airlines, Best Buy, Lotus Cars, Microsoft, Uber, and Zara.
• During its previous funding raise, Stripe announced that the proceeds would be used to provide liquidity to current and former employees and address tax obligations related to equity awards. This would involve retiring Stripe shares to offset the issuance of new shares to Series I investors.
• Despite long-standing speculations about a potential IPO, with many anticipating it to happen in 2024, this latest deal may push the company’s public offering to next year.
• In January, Rebecca Szkutak of TechCrunch reported on a flurry of buyers looking to purchase shares in Stripe, in anticipation of its IPO. According to secondary data tracker Caplight, a secondary sale in early January valued Stripe at $53.65 billion, with each share valued at $21.06.
• While the investors involved in the latest deal have not been named, Roelof Botha, managing partner at Sequoia Capital, was quoted in Stripe’s announcement. The Wall Street Journal also reported Goldman Sachs’s growth equity fund as another backer.
• The WSJ also revealed that the transaction is part of a commitment by Stripe’s founders, the Collison brothers, to provide liquidity on an annual basis to longtime and former employees. However, sources familiar with internal operations at Stripe state that this commitment is more regular and not necessarily annual.

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