Stripe considers PayPal acquisition in full-circle moment for Limerick's Collison brothers
John and Patrick Collison. The Stripe founders are said to be considering move for PayPal. Picture: Bloomberg
Irish-led payments processing firm Stripe is reaching a full-circle moment as the Collison brothers reportedly make moves to acquire the original fintech company that inspired its own establishment.
One of the industry’s most valuable companies, Irish-American multinational Stripe, is considering an acquisition of all or parts of PayPal, according to people familiar with the matter.
Founded in the late 1990s, PayPal was an early player in the world of digital payments. Primarily focusing on peer-to-peer payments and eBay purchases, the company became the go-to for those making regular transactions over the internet.
At its peak, PayPal employed more than 30,000 people worldwide, processing hundreds of billions in payments on an annual basis. However, more recent years have seen the fintech pioneer lose ground to growing competitors, and has struggled to modernise its technologies as rivals such as Apple and Google-owner Alphabet seize market share.
Unlike its competition, PayPal’s user experience was interrupted. While other providers offered seamless payments, PayPal users were redirected to the company’s platform, breaking the user experience and moving traffic away from the previous website.
The PayPal brand itself, which was distinct and easily recognisable, carried a lot of weight, making it feel alien to its client websites.
That is without Stripe, founded by Tipperary-born and Limerick-educated brothers John and Patrick Collison, also claiming crucial ground in the online payments space.
It was 2009 when the Collison brothers started working on what would later become Stripe. At this time, the brothers were both studying in university, with John at Harvard and Patrick at MIT. Neither completed their studies.
The pair, both BT Young Scientist winners and experienced in software development, focused on the programming aspect of a digital payments platform, with the famous “seven lines of code” phrase, although simplistic, symbolising the provider’s more streamlined architecture than its competitors.
In early 2010, the brothers applied to Y Combinator, a San Francisco-based start-up accelerator and venture capital firm. Operating since 2005, it has funded some of the world’s largest tech companies, including Airbnb, Reddit, Twitch and Dropbox, among others.
Stripe launched publicly in September 2011, opting to remain a private company. To this day, the payments giant has not outlined any plans for a public listing.
Just one year after its launch, the company was valued at $500m, after attracting investments from the founder of PayPal itself, Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, who went on to launch Tesla and Palantir, respectively. It also received financing from venture capitalist firms Sequoia Capital and Khosla Ventures.
Now a significant threat to rival PayPal, the Musk- and Thiel-founded company reportedly made a bid to buy Stripe in 2013, with the offer ultimately being turned down by the Collison brothers. The eBay-owned company later went on to buy the in-app payments system Braintree for $800m. It was also during this time that the brothers were included on the Forbes '30 under 30 to watch' list.
Just a few months later, at the start of 2014, the company’s value grew to $1.75bn. Less than 12 months later, that valuation rose to $3.5bn after being named as one of Apple’s partners for its new Apple Pay Services. At this point, Stripe was also powering Facebook’s (now Meta) “Buy” button, as well as Twitter’s (now X) e-commerce feature. It was around this time that the company also launched its Dublin office, employing around 100 people.
By 2016, Stripe’s valuation nearly doubled what it was in the previous year, growing to $9bn. That more than doubled two years later to $20bn in 2018, following a funding round in which it raised almost $250m in funding. At this point, Stripe was available in 25 countries, expanding its Dublin office, adding dozens of jobs to the 100 already there, and opening a brand new hub in Singapore.
By September 2019, the fintech secured a $35bn valuation after another funding round, launching it ahead of the two most valuable Silicon Valley start-ups, fellow Y Combinator alum Airbnb and Palantir Technologies, whose founder, Peter Thiel, had already invested heavily in Stripe.
Not long after, Stripe launched banking services through partnerships with Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Barclays and Evolve Bank & Trust.
By 2021, its valuation swelled to an eye-notching $95bn after raising a further $600m round of funding. Stripe had secured itself as the most valuable private fintech company, leading ahead of online trading platform Robinhood, which grew significantly during the pandemic amid the GameStop stock chaos of 2021.
In 2022, Stripe’s market valuation declined from its 2021 peak following a broader tech sector re-rating in the aftermath of the pandemic-induced tech boom. The company also did not complete a major funding round that year.
The company announced it would cut around 14% of its staff, with Stripe citing rising inflation, high interest rates, energy shocks and sparser funding. Its valuation dropped even further in 2023 to almost half what it was just two years prior, coming in at $50bn.
Its valuation recovered once again in 2024, helped by its purchase of more than $1bn in employee shares. By September 2025, Stripe’s value had completely recovered, exceeding its 2021 peak by growing to just under $107bn.
That brings Stripe to today, where just this week, it signed agreements with investors to provide liquidity to current and former employees through a tender offer that values the company at €135bn.
Detailing a strong year for the business, Stripe said businesses running their system generated $1.9tn (€1.6tn) in total volume, up 34% from 2024, and equivalent to roughly 1.6% of global GDP. The company had set itself up nicely when, just one day after its latest valuation announcement, it was reported that the fintech giant was considering an acquisition of PayPal.
Hence comes the full-circle moment. From identifying the PayPal-induced gaps in the growing fintech market, to developing a rival product, to receiving funding from its two founders, to turning down a bid from PayPal itself while still in its infancy, to growing into the world’s most valued private fintech company just a few years later. The move would represent a complete role reversal, showing that a young, ambitious company could not only compete with incumbents, but potentially absorb them.
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