MicroVentures’ Portfolio Company: Stripe’s History and Milestones

Stripe is a financial services and software-as-a-service company that provides application programming interfaces (APIs) for payment processing and other commerce-related operations. Founded in 2010, it has evolved from a developer-focused startup into a comprehensive global financial infrastructure platform that has been used by 90% of U.S. adults. In this blog, learn more about Stripe’s history and milestones, from Stripe’s founding story to its growth and achievements.

Stripe’s History and Milestones

Patrick and John Collison, Stripe’s co-founders and now Chief Executive Officer and President, respectively, hail from a small village in Ireland. The two brothers were fascinated by math and physics, and by their early teens had nine computers at home, a rarity the early 2000s. Patrick, the older brother, went to MIT in 2006 at age 17 based off an SAT he’d taken at 13 years old. John, the younger brother, followed Patrick to the United States, only 15 years old at the time. It was during this time that the two founded their first startups, one of which was Auctomatic, a software-as-a-service platform for eBay sellers to track inventory and traffic. Within 10 months, the two sold Auctomatic to Live Current Media for $5 million.

Stripe’s Founding Story

After Auctomatic, the Collison brothers recognized that e-commerce growth was being stunted by barriers to entry when setting up payments. New companies had to go to a bank and setup a gateway between their business and the bank in order to accept and remit payments. This was a time-consuming process that could take weeks, on top of the software being decades old and not updated for the changing digital landscape of 2008. The brothers recognized these challenges and wanted to build something better.

The Early Days

After participating in Y Combinator’s summer 2009 cohort, and receiving initial capital from the program, the two dropped out of MIT and Harvard in 2010. They developed seven simple lines of code that anyone could insert into any app or website in a day to connect to a payments company. This transformed a multi week process into mere minutes. In 2011, the Collison brothers approached Peter Thiel and Elon Musk for Series A capital to grow the company further. Thiel led a $2 million Series A round with participation from Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz, and grew rapidly through word of mouth from developers.

Stripe’s Products

Stripe has expanded its product line significantly from the first seven lines of code, now encompassing a full technical infrastructure designed for every aspect of the payments process, while still focusing on easily implementable products suitable for the earliest startup through a globally established venture. The following are some of Stripe’s largest products.

Core Payments Infrastructure

At the core of Stripe’s product line is its core payments infrastructure. This allows businesses to accept payments online, in person, and around the world, with just a few simple lines of code that can be easily set up within minutes. Payment Links helps customers create a landing page to accept payments without needing a website. Connect is a comprehensive suite of APIs and tools designed to allow platforms and marketplaces to manage payments, onboard users, and facilitate global payouts seamlessly, all while handling payment compliance. Finally, Terminal provides the hardware and software for Stripe’s customers to accept payments in person through card swipes or tap to pay.

Revenue and Finance Automation

Stripe’s revenue and finance automation tools are designed to help businesses automate manual processes. Billing aims to help create and manage subscriptions or invoices from a central dashboard and experiment with different pricing models for usage-based pricing. Radar uses advanced AI-powered fraud detection and protection to detect and block fraud, distinguishing legitimate customers from bad actors. Finally, Tax is engineered to help users calculate and collect customers’ sales tax, value-added tax (VAT), and goods and services tax (GST).

Stripe’s Milestones

Over the years, Stripe has reached numerous milestones in terms of traction, revenue, and awards. Some of its recent milestones are, but not limited to, the following:

Doubled its free cash flow year-over-year (YoY) in 2024 to ~$2.2 billion and reported $5.1 billion in net revenues, a 28% increase YoY[1]
Owns 68% of the e-commerce payment processing market and reports that 90% of U.S. adults have bought from companies using Stripe[2]
Reported profitability in 2024 and crossed $1.4 trillion in total payment volumefor the year, equivalent to around 3% of global GDP and up 40% from $1 trillion in 2023[3]
Its products span 195+ countries and 135+ currencies, offering payment processing in 46 markets and citing an average revenue uplift of 11.9% for businesses using its latest checkout optimizations[4]
Claims to support millions of businesses including Amazon, Google, Instacart, Figma, Shopify, Notion, and Wayfair[5]

Final Thoughts

What started as seven lines of code has grown to a global payments infrastructure for businesses of all sizes. From a local artist collecting payments at a craft fair to a global enterprise collecting subscription payments, Stripe has built the ecosystem to support and simplify the payments process, from start to finish. Despite its growth, Stripe currently has no plans to conduct an initial public offering (IPO) and plans to continue growing as a private company.

Are you ready to invest in startups? Sign up for a MicroVentures account to start investing!

SIGN UP FOR FREE

Want to learn more about investing in startups? Check out the following MicroVentures blogs to learn more:

[1] https://www.theinformation.com/articles/stripe-minted-2-billion-cash-last-year-go-public

[2] https://www.demandsage.com/stripe-statistics/

[3] https://assets.stripeassets.com/fzn2n1nzq965/2pt3yIHthraqR1KwXgr98U/df10795aac0205789956c89e0dfc4f1a/Stripe-annual-letter-2024.pdf

[4] https://stripe.com/payments

[5] https://stripe.com/customers

*****

The information presented here is for general informational purposes only and is not intended to be, nor should it be construed or used as, comprehensive offering documentation for any security, investment, tax or legal advice, a recommendation, or an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, an interest, directly or indirectly, in any company. Investing in both early-stage and later-stage companies carries a high degree of risk. A loss of an investor’s entire investment is possible, and no profit may be realized. Investors should be aware that these types of investments are illiquid and should anticipate holding until an exit occurs.

MicroVentures Blog