Stripe's share purchase plan values company at €87.3bn

Limerick brothers say online payments using Stripe rose by 38% to $1.4tn last year

John Collison, co-founder Stripe.

Irish-US payments giant Stripe has reached an agreement with investors that will allow it buy shares from employees that will value the company at €87.3bn.

Alongside investors, Stripe said it would also repurchase shares. The agreement likely means a long-mulled stock market IPO is unlikely in the short term.

In their annual letter to the Stripe community, co-founders Patrick and John Collison said Stripe processed $1.4tr (€1.3tr) in total payments last year, up 38% from the prior year, and equivalent to around 1.3% of global GDP.

They attributed the rapid growth to long-standing investments in artificial intelligence that “continue to pay off". 

"In each of the last six years, Stripe has reinvested a much higher proportion of our earnings in R&D than any comparable company," the Collisons said.

"We believe this ability will prove particularly important in the coming years, as stablecoins, AI, and other forces reshape the landscape. Stripe’s growth to date is evidence of the intense market demand for programmable financial services. The associated transformation is still early.”

Half of the Fortune 100 now uses Stripe, and the company counts NVIDIA, PepsiCo, News Corp and Comcast amongst its customers.