Stripe has more than doubled its valuation in two years

Irish company Stripe, founded by Limerick brothers John and Patrick Collison, has secured $245 million in its latest round of funding, valuing the start-up at a massive $20 billion.

Founded in 2010 by the Collison brothers, Stripe is an online payments technology. The company initially worked with other start-ups, but now includes juggernauts like Nike, Macy’s, GE, Adidas, Facebook, and Lyft as its customers.

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In 2017, 26-year-old Patrick Collison was named the youngest self-made billionaire in the world with a net worth of $1.1 billion thanks in part to Stripe. His older brother John joins him among the youngest billionaires in the world.

Last year, Stripe board member Mike Moritz said of the Collison brothers: "There's such an improbability to their story — that these brothers from a little village would come to build what could well be one of the most important companies on the internet.”

Stripe’s latest round of funding raised $245 million, placing the company’s valuation at a staggering $20 billion. In 2016, it was valued at less than half that at around $9 billion.

The Irish founders said the latest round of funding will be used to help expand the company into more international markets, particularly Southeast Asia, where they aim to open a new engineering hub in Singapore.

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The company right now has hubs in San Francisco, and Seattle, and recently opened one in Dublin. The 8-year-old company employs about 1,000 people internationally.

“Better global payments infrastructure will increase economic output, encourage entrepreneurship, and help upstarts compete with incumbents,” Collison said to The Irish Times.

“By bringing Stripe into more markets and building out our capabilities for companies of all sizes, we hope to accelerate innovation around the world,” he added.

Regarding the latest round of funding, John Collison told Bloomberg, “We talked to almost nobody. We are lucky in that we’ve been generating revenue from the start and have never been in the position where had to raise money.”

“It’s more about looking a year or two ahead and deciding if we want to stay on the current track or go big on some things.”

Bloomberg went on to say that Stripe isn’t necessarily a household name in the US because it mainly exists in the background of e-commerce sites. However, some 84% of American online shoppers have used Stripe in the past year.

"The geeks will inherit the earth,” said Collison. “The geekish companies will do so.”