Stripe

Overview

Stripe is a privately held payments infrastructure company co-founded in 2010 by Irish brothers Patrick and John Collison, after the two sold their first company for $5 million while still teenagers (Bloomberg). It sells software that lets businesses accept payments, send payouts, and automate financial processes, and it operates with dual headquarters in San Francisco and Dublin (Reuters). In 2024, businesses on the platform generated $1.4 trillion in total payment volume, up 38% from the prior year, and the company says it was profitable that year (Laois Nationalist).

What sets Stripe apart is not just scale but structure: it is one of the most valuable private companies in the world — valued at $91.5 billion in its February 2025 tender offer — that has stayed private by building a recurring internal liquidity market instead of going public (Reuters). The Collison brothers remain its leaders, and Forbes estimated each brother’s net worth at $10.1 billion in 2025 (Laois Nationalist).

The valuation rollercoaster and the tender-offer machine

Stripe’s private valuation has swung dramatically while the company stayed out of public markets. In March 2021 it hit $95 billion, making it the most valuable U.S. startup at the time, ahead of SpaceX and surpassing publicly traded rivals including Adyen (Bloomberg). When the tech market cooled, Stripe raised more than $6.5 billion at a $50 billion valuation in March 2023 — a cut of roughly 47% from the peak — with the company saying explicitly that it did not need the capital to run the business and would use it to give employees liquidity and cover tax obligations on equity awards (TechCrunch).

Recovery came through tender offers rather than IPOs. In February 2024, Stripe arranged for investors to buy more than $1 billion of current and former employees’ shares at a $65 billion valuation, 30% above the 2023 round (TechCrunch). The Wall Street Journal reported the deal as part of a commitment by the Collison brothers to provide liquidity to longtime and former employees regularly (TechCrunch). A year later, the February 2025 tender valued the company at $91.5 billion, nearly 41% higher than a year earlier and close to the 2021 peak — a move Reuters reported could push the long-anticipated IPO further out (Reuters). In their annual letter, the co-founders stated: “Stripe was profitable in 2024, and we expect to be so in 2025 and beyond” (Reuters). The customer roster named by Reuters includes X, Amazon, Hertz and Instacart (Reuters).

Beyond payments: embedded finance and stablecoins

Stripe has pushed well past payment acceptance into embedded finance. Stripe Issuing lets businesses create their own credit and debit cards — physical or virtual — with a few lines of code, with programmable spending controls and certification directly with all major card networks (Stripe). Stripe Treasury gives businesses a single platform to accept payments, hold and convert funds, and pay recipients in nearly 100 countries; platforms such as Squarespace use its Treasury for Platforms product to offer embedded financial accounts, balances, and spend cards to their own customers (Stripe).

In October 2024 Stripe made its largest acquisition ever: stablecoin infrastructure company Bridge for $1.1 billion, described by Bernstein analysts as the largest crypto acquisition by a major fintech (DL News). That bet connected directly to the September 2026 launch of Open USD (OUSD): Open Standard’s five founding partners and investors — each holding an equal initial equity stake — are Coinbase, Mastercard, Shopify, Stripe, and Visa, with more than $1 billion committed to liquidity (CoinDesk). Open Standard’s CEO, Zach Abrams, previously co-founded and led Bridge before Stripe acquired it (CoinDesk). The card networks Stripe’s customers pay through are now its co-owners in stablecoin rails.

What this profile does not claim

This profile does not claim to know the Collison brothers’ exact ownership stakes — Stripe is private and does not disclose them. It does not claim Stripe has IPO plans or a timeline for going public; only the verified tender offers are stated. The Forbes net-worth estimates ($10.1 billion each) are dated 2025 and are paper valuations tied to Stripe’s private share price, not realized wealth. The Bridge acquisition is described as Stripe’s largest at the time of announcement per Bernstein; later acquisitions may have surpassed it. Open Standard’s ownership split and liquidity commitments were stated by its CEO in September 2026 interviews and may change. Stripe’s relationship with the card networks is described only through the two sourced points: Issuing’s certification with them and the Open Standard co-ownership — the profile does not claim Visa or Mastercard own any part of Stripe.