Stripe was founded by brothers Patrick and John Collison and reached a $95 billion valuation in 2021.
The Irish entrepreneurs started Stripe in 2010 to make online payments easier for businesses. Its software lets companies accept payments, manage subscriptions, issue invoices, and handle other financial operations without building the entire payment system themselves.
In March 2021, Stripe raised $600 million in a funding round that valued the company at $95 billion. That valuation made it one of the world’s most valuable private technology companies and briefly the highest-valued U.S. startup. The figure referred to a private-market valuation, not a stock-market capitalization.
Adyen, PayPal, and Square are legitimate payment-industry names, which makes them plausible distractors. However, Adyen was founded by Pieter van der Does and Arnout Schuijff, PayPal has a different founding history, and Square was created by Jack Dorsey and Jim McKelvey. The Collison brothers specifically identify Stripe.