Zebras... or stripe

A privately-held Irish-American fintech software company (full payments stack) founded by Patrick and John Collison focused on payment processing and APIs for businesses. This payments infrastructure is widely used, notably by tech giants such as Amazon, Instacart, Shopify, Zoom, etc. Out of the tech companies that went public in 2021, 60% of them were Stripe customers. It operates with the principle “Users First” to provide efficient solutions for businesses to calculate revenue, make payroll, file taxes, pay suppliers, etc. Powers 135 currencies. Primarily in the payments space, but partnered with other SaaS platforms like Lightspeed, can offer very comprehensive 1-stop solutions. 

Business basics + Statistics:

• 3.2 million live websites using Stripe
  
• 1400 new companies joined
  
• Latin American & APAC on Stripe increased 518% and 106%
  
• 7000 employees across 23 countries 
  

• Three main divisions: payments, business operations and financial services
  
  • Payments: includes billing, connect (platforms), invoicing, UI, terminals (BBPOS), etc.
    
  • Business operations: Radar, Atlas, taxes, revenue recognition (Recko), etc.
    
  • Financial services: financing, issuing, corporate card, etc. (expense consolidation, etc.)
    
• Setting up new companies through Atlas: $500 set up and ongoing registered agent fees in Delaware of $100 per year
  

Competitive advantages: 

• Very starter friendly: offers a very large range of integrated solutions 
  
• Customizable: its API offers lots of flexibility and customizable configurations (however, at the same time, programming can be impediment, which is being worked on through customizable Payment Links) 
  
• Global: improvement in Global Payments & Treasury Network (GPTN) to cover 50 local payment methods worldwide and payouts to 72 countries 
  
• Stability: offers reliability and performance, especially against cybersecurity attacks
  
• Focused on the creator economy, which is somewhat related to a more decentralized payments economy and supportive of “solopreneurs”.
  

Valuation:
In comparison to other firms such as: 
Adyen ‘21 GPV: $561B + 70% YoY (2180 employees)

• Valuation is $57B, 25% YoY
  
• Requires minimum invoice of 120 USD/month, processing fee plus payment method fee
  

Stripe ‘21 GPV: $640B + 60% YoY

• Valuation is around $95B (Crunchbase)
  
• Pricing: 2.9% + 30 cents (online), 2.7% + 5 cents + 1-1.3% app fee (physical)
  
• International card fee 1% and 1% currency conversion fee
  

Square ‘21 GPV: $46.3B

• 2.6% + 10 cents (card present), 3.5% + 15 cents (manually entered), 2.9% + 30 cents (online)
  

Paypal ‘21 GPV: $1.25T (less of a comparable in terms of sizing)

• But fees are worth looking at, slightly cheaper than Stripe (on average by 5 cents per transaction)
  

Compared to competitors such as Square/Block, pricing is slightly more expensive in some aspects; however, it is a more comprehensive e-commerce platform solution. Square/Block is primarily focused on SMBs who sell primarily in person, while Stripe is more for e-commerce. Relative to Adyen, it has more integration partnerships (i.e. with Shopify, etc.) and has more support options for businesses; it also is more flexible for individuals while Adyen requires an application for all business accounts to receive a merchant account. With a slightly different consumer base focus and a powerful international merchant platform (alongside advanced reporting tools), Stripe is quite differentiated in its field. It has a large growing consumer base and higher margins than its closest peers.