Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation

axios.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

431–440 of 463 posts

Re: Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation

#431

Post by sealthedeal »

huhtenberg wrote: post #389
sealthedeal wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the feedback :) We are an API for cross-border payments. Our customers are international payroll providers, credit card companies, neo-banks, and other types of companies who need to process X-border payments in their application. If you were an e-commerce store, we could certainly help you re-patriate funds via our web app, but that’s not our focus. Are you having issues re-patriating funds? Happy to help…

> re-patriating funds I have no idea what this means. The problem is that you (and the marketing copy on your site) explain what you DO instead of which of the problems you might help me solve. Use-cases, in plain English. Perhaps you have enough business already, so you don't really care about pitching passerbys, but if you do, then your pitch is unclear and confusing.

You actually hit the nail on the head. We have been growing like crazy and the copy on our marketing website hasn't changed since we quickly put it up. I truly appreciate the candidness.

fwiw - re-patriating of funds would be when a company based in the UK for example, is doing business in the USA, and they are getting paid in the USA, in USD. Moving that money back home to the UK in GBP would be the re-patriation of those funds.

Re: Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation

#432

Post by sealthedeal »

sealthedeal wrote: post #295
econcon wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't FX a done deal based on how TransferWise is able to do it. Maybe you guys can collaborate with them and make payouts in any currency possible atleast in countries where there are no Forex restrictions like Hong Kong.

TW is not an ideal solution. I am biased, but IMHO using a service like Routefusion solves all of these problems. Companies like Elliot use our API's to settle CC transactions that are in different countries. You hook your Stripe account in and then they re-patriate the money to wherever it needs to go. Check us out! developer.routefusion.co

-4 points. Maybe this reads as too self-promoting. Apologies to the HN'ers reading this :)

Re: Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation

#433

Post by kernelbugs »

byefruit wrote: post #246
joering2 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please no. TransferWise is terrible at customer support and internet is full of horror stories of people founds being frozen. The are the new incarnation of good ole’ paypal. You will get your account frozen the moment you wire more than$1,500 as per my own experience with 3 different businesses giving them a chance. I hope Stripe which is amazing will never have anything to do with TransferFraud.

Not affiliated with TransferWise in any way but just want to say that this is totally the opposite of my experience and that of pretty much everyone I know who uses TransferWise. We've moved hundreds of thousands of dollars through them over the last couple of years with no problems on their end (we've had problems with banks failing to transfer correctly though..)

I've had the same (mostly) great experience with them.

My only issues with TransferWise have been having to ask recipients for their full addresses and then manually having to translate address schemes into something that fits in the boxes TransferWise provides in their forms. Sometimes things don't map over 1-to-1 (some Japanese and Taiwanese addresses, for example). I've also found that some Japanese banks only have one branch without a name and Transferwise requires a branch name. I eventually figured things out by researching the branch number online though.

All minor gripes though. Transferwise has let my business operate smoothly and make connections to vendors that would otherwise be cost-prohibitive to pay.

Re: Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation

#434

Post by lotsofpulp »

GarrisonPrime wrote: post #422
pianoben wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will never argue that the founders are not acting wisely - they've got no moral imperative to go public. As you say, there's far cheaper capital on offer. Rather, it's a systemic failing. They would pay an undeniable cost by going the IPO route, but it would be to the benefit of their employees and the public at large. Private markets being so flush with cash while regular folks are strapped, on the other hand, is…

>...we should be re-purposing those dollars for societal benefit. _There_ is the moral failing. To see such a dangerous, totalitarian ideology expressed so casually is terrifying.

I don’t understand it either. If you want more compensation, ask for more compensation. If you accept equity that you don’t have control over, don’t complain when it behaves like a lottery ticket.

Re: Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation

#435

Post by lotsofpulp »

GarrisonPrime wrote: post #427
fbelzile wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A majority of my sales are from US customers buying in USD. With PayPal, fees are: 3.7% + $0.30 USD With Stripe, fees are: 2.9% + $0.30 CAD + 0.6% (international card charge) + 2.0% (currency conversion fee)

Wow, so expensive either way. European card processing is around 1.7% from what I’ve seen. American banks are atrocious. Is the Federal Reserve rate responsible for this. American banks also take forever to transfer payments, which drives me mad. There is this massive amount of money just in limbo, a sort of shush cash pile, which the banks make interest off of while the owners of the money fume waiting for permissio…

>Is the Federal Reserve rate responsible for this.

No, it’s caused by the fact that I get a minimum of 2.625% cash back on all purchases, and actually 5.25% on all online and most of my other purchases with credit cards.

Re: Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation

#436

Post by bbutterworth »

dx034 wrote: post #416
brongondwana wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"For example, if you're processing $100k/year and refund 5% of your payments (which would be on the high end of normal), it works out to about $12/month". Patrick, please don't do that. It's scummy maths and unworthy of you. Either "if you're doing $8k/month it work out to about $12/month" or "if you're doing $100k/year it would work out to about $145/year" would be better. Using different units for the two different…

I don't think it's scummy. Revenues are usually measured on an annual basis, fees for many subscriptions come monthly. I believe this gives a good idea on monthly expenses for a business of a certain size.

I was caught off by this sleight of hand; I agree that it is scummy.

Re: Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation

#437

Post by [deleted] »

GarrisonPrime wrote: post #422
pianoben wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will never argue that the founders are not acting wisely - they've got no moral imperative to go public. As you say, there's far cheaper capital on offer. Rather, it's a systemic failing. They would pay an undeniable cost by going the IPO route, but it would be to the benefit of their employees and the public at large. Private markets being so flush with cash while regular folks are strapped, on the other hand, is…

>...we should be re-purposing those dollars for societal benefit. _There_ is the moral failing. To see such a dangerous, totalitarian ideology expressed so casually is terrifying.

[deleted]

Re: Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation

#438

Post by namibj »

plantain wrote: post #273
codethief wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Customers can arbitrarily chargeback even after several days. You are aware that this is possible with credit cards as well, right?

Credit card chargebacks have an appeals / dispute resolution process. SEPA does not.

The process for SEPA is called "sue them"/"press fraud charges".

Re: Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation

#439

Post by clement911 »

plantain wrote: post #136
pc wrote: post #75

Stripe cofounder here. This isn't really new -- it's an extension of our last round ( https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/19/fintech-start-up-stripe-notc... ). That said, we've seen a big spike in signups over the past few weeks. If any HN readers have integrated recently and have feedback, we're always eager to hear it. Feel free to email me at patrick@stripe.com and I'll route to the right team(s). As always, thank you to…

My top issues running my business on Stripe: 1) Many countries still only allow depositing a single currency (i.e. Aus/AUD), doubling the cost of transaction due to the currency conversion, even tripling when we have to convert it back to pay our bills. I always get told either "soon", or "not possible due to the law", despite competitors doing it. 2) If we were an EU company, we'd get charged 1.4%+25c on transaction…

As a Stripe customer incorporated in Australia, I have the exact same feedback. Not being able to get paid out in USD and incurring double FX costs is real problem.

Re: Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation

#440

Post by lxgr »

rswail wrote: post #367
thesimon wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>or maybe banks colluding to protect their interests? Mostly banks and retailers colluding together to use a cheap domestic-only POS-only scheme (think Przelewy24, but offline or LINK but at POS).

Hardly "collusion" that most nations have some form of debit payment system that is independent of the Visa/MC networks.

Yes, but in most countries, such debit cards are co-branded with Visa or Mastercard to make them usable abroad or online.

In Germany, most banks still see these use cases as an opportunity to upsell their loyal customers on their expensive credit card products (not in terms of interest really, but rather because of high monthly and foreign use fees).

Post reply on HN