Digital payments platform Stripe has raised $600 million in new funding and is now valued at nearly $36 billion, co-founder and president John Collison tells Axios.
Why it matters: Venture capitalists remain willing and able to invest big dollars in select companies, despite concerns that some limited partners could struggle to meet capital calls.
This is an extension to Stripe's Series G round, which closed last fall on $250 million, and came together in just the past few weeks. Most of the participants are existing investors.
- Stripe was widely viewed as a 2019 IPO candidate. When that didn't happen, a 2020 IPO candidate. But Collison and his CEO brother Patrick have steadfastly refused to publicly comment on their timeline (except to say "not anytime soon").
Between the lines: Stripe also may be one of the few companies to be somewhat benefiting from lockdowns, given its focus on e-commerce enablement.
- Existing clients include Instacart, DoorDash, Postmates, and Caviar. It also recently added Zoom.
- Collison says that businesses that joined Stripe since March 1 have generated nearly $1 billion in revenue already.
- "This is digital migration in a very compressed period of time, for both businesses and customers," Collison adds. "My mom recently asked me if I'd heard of 'this Instacart thing.' Yeah mom, I have."
Go deeper: Stripe becomes the third-highest-valued U.S. startup
