Stripe Capitalizes on AI Trends to Restore $90 Billion Valuation

Stripe has initiated a share sale among its employees that has propelled its value from $70 billion to $91.5 billion, bringing it closer to its all-time high valuation of $95 billion. In February 2024, Stripe’s private market valuation increased to $65 billion, and now, the company has achieved a significant milestone, raising its valuation by 41% in just six months.



Stripe CEO Patrick Collison (left) and president John Collison (right). Source: Bloomberg
Stripe initiates employee share sales
Stripe is now allowing its long-term employees to liquidate their stakes by selling their shares to investors. This share sale is the driving force behind the rise in the company’s valuation to $91.5 billion, a substantial increase from the $70 billion valuation reported just six months ago. The tender offer provides liquidity to employees and indicates substantial investor confidence in Stripe. The 14-year-old Irish-American company has also dismissed any plans to launch an initial public offering (IPO), opting instead to channel its resources into research and development.
Stripe’s possible public listing has long been anticipated, and with the company reaching a much higher valuation, it has become a topic of conversation. In 2024, John Collison, Stripe president and co-founder, stated that he and his brother Patrick, the company’s chief executive, did not plan to take it public as public markets were volatile at that time. “With the IPO, we’re not in a rush. Businesses which are profitable have many, many more options than businesses which are dependent on outside capital,” Collison explained in an interview with the Financial Times.
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Stripe rides the AI escalator to higher valuations
According to John Collison’s admission, the increase in Stripe’s valuation owes much to the overwhelming demand from artificial intelligence (AI) companies. Fintech startups, including Stripe, have fully embraced AI-driven applications that maximize the technology for processes such as fraud detection and transaction processing. In 2024, Stripe processed an impressive $1.4 trillion in payments, a 40% increase from the previous year. The company also acquired Bridge for $1.1 billion as part of plans to expand its payment processing capabilities with stablecoins. Stripe’s client portfolio features high-profile names such as Elon Musk’s X, Amazon, Hertz Global, and Instacart.
Co-founders and siblings John and Patrick Collison emphasized the company’s sustained profitability in 2024 in their annual letter and projected continued financial health into 2025. The company previously plunged from its peak valuation of $95 billion to $50 billion in 2023. Since then, it has rebounded and appears to be on its way back to its peak. Other fintech startups like Chime and Klarna were also affected during the market volatility of 2023 but have since recovered. Both companies are now preparing to go public.
Stripe currently has no intentions to follow suit but may be open to it depending on what is best for the company. “We’ve stayed private longer than most tech companies, and that’s been a positive,” Stripe president John Collison said. “We can plow profits back into research and development, but we’re not dogmatic . . . We decide what’s best for the business on an ongoing basis.”
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Collison stated that the impact of AI on companies’ revenue and growth has resulted in private companies being much more capable of reaching higher valuations than at the height of investment frenzies in 2021 and 2022. “These [AI] companies that are very fast-growing have very steep revenue ramps because the products are very useful. You should be able to see real impact,” he said. “Is this going away as a sector? Absolutely not. Companies are voraciously buying what [AI startups] OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cursor have to sell because it provides them with utility. You can have self-referential speculative bubbles like crypto, but AI is driven by real utility.”
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