Stripe already had a cash hoard of $2 billion.

In its largest funding round yet, California-based payment platform Stripe announced that it raised $600 million. The funding was an extension of its $250 million series G funding round. The unicorn said it intended to use the new money to expand its workforce and advance its software. It also intends to make strategic acquisitions and expand across the globe. (Finovate)

Valuation and investors

Series G commenced in September 2019 and reportedly valued Stripe at $35 billion. Interestingly, the additional money on the round is coming at a higher valuation of $36 billion. This is despite that the global economic situation has drastically changed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The fresh $600 million was raised from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, GV and Sequoia, under the same terms and valuation as its existing Series G funding.

With this new funding, the payments unicorn has raised about $1.6 billion in total.

Stripe and the pandemic

In its announcement of the funding, Stripe said: “the current disruption underscores the need for reliable, easy-to-use infrastructure for Internet businesses.”

It claimed it had a capital-efficient business model with the added advantage of a $2 billion pile of cash on its balance sheet.

It said it had the two-pronged objective to provide seamless services to its users at a difficult time as well as invest in long-term improvements.

Stripe’s specific measures include support for telemedicine providers, assistance in launching a business on stripe, helping physical businesses to move to an online model, seamlessly scaling up services for high-growth customers and helping small businesses to secure government aid.

The new online paradigm

“People who never dreamt of using the internet to see the doctor or buy groceries are now doing so out of necessity. And businesses that deferred moving online or had no reason to operate online have made the leap practically overnight,” said John Collison, President and Co-founder. “We believe now is not the time to pull back, but to invest even more heavily in Stripe’s platform.”

Stripe and new ventures

Stripe regularly invests in start-ups. Late last month, it led a series A funding round worth $ 1 million in quick check out start-up Fast. Fast aims to make online shopping a wholly ‘one-click’ experience.

Stripe wants to simplify the online checkout process using Fast – in the process building a bridge to its own payment gateways.

The Fast universal buy button would in effect become the front end for Stripe. “Stripe’s job is to make it easier to accept payments. Our job is to make it easier to make payments and for consumers to interact with all companies online,” said CEO and co-founder Domm Holland at the time.

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