Payment firm Stripe in no rush to go public, Collison says

John Collison added that crypto and stablecoins are also starting to gain traction after a long period of struggling to find a foothold to achieve mainstream adoption

'We’re still not in any rush,' John Collison said in an interview at Davos.

Stripe does not have imminent plans for a public listing, according to John Collison, the billionaire co-founder and president of the payment processing firm.

“We’re still not in any rush,” Collison said in an interview with Bloomberg News at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “It’s very early for us where, genuinely, it’s the fastest moving time in our industry since we started Stripe.” 

Last year, Stripe notched a $106.7bn (€91.2bn) valuation, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said at the time. That was up from a $91.5bn (€78.2bn) valuation it achieved months earlier. 

The San Francisco and Dublin-based firm has conducted several tender offers to provide employees and investors a chance to cash-in on their shares without a public listing.

Collison cited agentic commerce as a trend he expects to accelerate in coming years, likening it to the shift from bricks-and-mortar stores to online shopping. 

Stablecoins

He added that crypto and stablecoins, digital assets designed to maintain a constant value against a currency like the dollar, are also starting to gain traction after a long period of struggling to find a foothold to achieve mainstream adoption. William Gaybrick, Stripe’s president of product and business, referred to agentic commerce and stablecoins as “twin revolutions in intelligence and money” at a company event last year.

The stablecoin boom has been buoyed by the crypto-friendly stance of US president Donald Trump’s second administration. In July, the president signed the first federal regulatory framework for stablecoin issuers, which catalysed interest in the technology across financial institutions, technology firms and retailers. 

There are currently more than $300bn (€256.4bn) of stablecoins in circulation. Stripe has been increasingly incorporating stablecoins into its product suite and last year acquired stablecoin platform Bridge for $1.1bn (€0.9bn). 

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The firm is positioning itself as an infrastructure provider in the burgeoning sector by helping clients offer stablecoin-linked cards, issue their own tokens and manage their businesses using stablecoin-funded financial accounts. Stripe’s Bridge joined a crush of crypto firms applying for national trust bank charters last year.

“We’ve wanted crypto stuff to work for the longest time and this is the first time we’re seeing really significant adoption, especially with stablecoin,” Collison said, adding that the firm has been tracking crypto since the Bitcoin white paper was released in 2008. Stripe was founded a year later, he noted. 

“We’re just focused on growing the business.”

Bloomberg