Irish-led payments giant Stripe has reportedly acquired stablecoin platform Bridge in a $1.1bn deal.
In what is understood to be its biggest acquisition to date, the Collison brothers’ Stripe has acquired crypto platform Bridge.
Bridge provides software tools that helps businesses to accept payments in stablecoins.
“Ireland produces software companies at industrial scale, and the internet economy is everywhere”
Prior to the acquisition Bridge had raised $58m in investment and was valued at $200m.
Reports had been circulating that Stripe was in talks to buy Bridge but in recent days Techcrunch founder Michael Arrington tweeted that it was a done deal with a $1.1bn price tag.
Stacking them up
John and Patrick Collison, founders of Stripe
The news adds impetus to Stripe’s return to the cryptocurrency world with a vengeance, after it last year reinstated crypto payments for US businesses as well as forging a partnership with Coinbase to add Stripe as a way of buying crypto.
Stripe, which was last valued at north of $70bn, was founded in San Francisco 2009 when CEO Patrick Collison was just 22 and his brother John was 19.
Prior that the brothers who hail from Nenagh but as teenagers living in Limerick established a start-up in 2007 called Shuppa that later became known as Auctomatic. They sold Auctomatic for $5m when they were just 19 and 17 respectively.
The Collisons have been focused on growing Stripe’s enterprise user base and customers now include giants like Amazon, Ford, Salesforce, BMW and Maersk and most recently NVIDIA.
The business first began supporting Irish businesses in 2013 when only a few hundred Irish businesses used Stripe.
Now, tens of thousands of ventures run on Stripe, with hundreds more joining every week. They include technology companies such as Glofox and Wayflyer that were built on Stripe from day one, and heritage enterprises like the GAA, Irish Life, and Smyths Toys Superstores that are reinventing themselves for the digital age. Over the last decade, Irish businesses have processed more than €20 billion on Stripe.
“Thinking back to when we launched Stripe, Ireland’s tech scene is like night and day,” John Collison, president and co-founder of Stripe recalled.
“Tech founders would find it impossibly difficult to raise money and compete for talent, and small businesses simply didn’t have the tools to operate online.
“Nowadays, Ireland produces software companies at industrial scale, and the internet economy is everywhere. With new talent coming through courses like the University of Limerick’s Immersive Software Engineering and accelerators like NDRC, I’m excited to see what Irish founders build next,” Collison added.
-
Bank of Ireland is welcoming new customers every day – funding investments, working capital and expansions across multiple sectors. To learn more, click here
-
Listen to the ThinkBusiness Podcast for business insights and inspiration. All episodes are here. You can also listen to the Podcast on:
-
Spotify
-
SoundCloud
-
Apple
