Stripe, a San Francisco-based digital payments infrastructure company, is in talks to raise new private funding at a valuation of at least $70 billion, and perhaps as high as $100 billion, per Bloomberg.
Why it matters: This would make Stripe the world's second-most valuable venture-backed company, or maybe the most valuable if ByteDance divests its majority stake in TikTok by this Friday's CFIUS deadline. It's also another indication that Stripe's founding Collison brothers are reticent to bring the company public.
$$ history: Stripe raised $600 million at nearly a $36 billion valuation back in April. Overall it's raised nearly $2 billion from firms like Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, CapitalG and Thrive Capital.
The bottom line: "The company has benefited during the pandemic with more shoppers turning to e-commerce. It’s gone on offense during the downturn this year, starting a card-issuing service for U.S. clients and agreeing to acquire a Nigerian startup to expand in Africa," Bloomberg writes.
