Back in 2021, payment processor Stripe set a record with a valuation of $95 billion. But after the latest funding round, which raised $6.5 billion, the company’s valuation got almost cut in half, dropping to $50 billion.
The latest Series I funding round saw contributions from existing investors like venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and private equity company General Catalyst. A number of new investors joined in, including Goldman Sachs Asset Management and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC.
In a press release shared on Wednesday, Stripe said that the company “does not need this capital to run its business,” Instead, the funds will be used towards settling Stripe’s tax bill and “provide liquidity to current and former employees.”
Stripe was founded in 2009 with the goal of providing businesses with an easy way to accept payments and send payouts via their websites and apps. The company’s early investors were Elon Musk, Sequoia Capital, and Andreessen Horowitz. Over the years, Stripe expanded its business globally and made a series of acquisitions, including Nigerian payment processor Paystack and cloud-based tax service TaxJar.
Stripe remains a privately-owned company, although there have been plenty of rumors about it going public. Some reports indicated that this could happen at some point in 2024 despite Stripe reiterating it prefers its private status.