Stripe in Talks for Up to $500M in New Funding • Hacker News Board

Re: Stripe in Talks for Up to $500M in New Funding

#11

Post by qq66 » Thu, May 21, 2015, 2:48 AM UTC

kaolinite wrote: post #2

Stripe is a fully featured product and platform now with so many customers: it's the go-to payment provider for pretty much every startup. Do they really need this money? If so, that's scary. I want my payment provider to have a rock solid business model, not still burning VC cash. I would expect that at this stage Stripe ought to be pulling away from VC money, as their profits hopefully increase. There are, of cours…

Financial companies often need working capital that's independent of investment in new products. For example, if Stripe wants to have an offering that pays Party A today, but collects that money from Party B tomorrow, they need working capital for that, but that capital is at much lower risk and gets financed with very different terms (often debt rather than equity).

Re: Stripe in Talks for Up to $500M in New Funding

#12

Post by thinkcomp » Thu, May 21, 2015, 3:01 AM UTC

pc wrote: post #5

kaolinite wrote: post #2

Stripe is a fully featured product and platform now with so many customers: it's the go-to payment provider for pretty much every startup. Do they really need this money? If so, that's scary. I want my payment provider to have a rock solid business model, not still burning VC cash. I would expect that at this stage Stripe ought to be pulling away from VC money, as their profits hopefully increase. There are, of cours…

Stripe CEO here: this story is false. We've never even contemplated raising such a vast amount of money.

According to Crunchbase you've already raised $190 million.

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/stripe

I guess that's just shy of a "vast amount"? What planet are you guys on? It's insulting.

Re: Stripe in Talks for Up to $500M in New Funding

#13

Post by outericky » Thu, May 21, 2015, 3:08 AM UTC

shah_s wrote: post #7

I wonder what they need that much money for. Their product is pretty solid and I assume they are making a profit. Is it for marketing purpose?

See above. PC calls bull on this story.

Re: Stripe in Talks for Up to $500M in New Funding

#14

Post by outericky » Thu, May 21, 2015, 3:12 AM UTC

jgalt212 wrote: post #3

kaolinite wrote: post #2

Stripe is a fully featured product and platform now with so many customers: it's the go-to payment provider for pretty much every startup. Do they really need this money? If so, that's scary. I want my payment provider to have a rock solid business model, not still burning VC cash. I would expect that at this stage Stripe ought to be pulling away from VC money, as their profits hopefully increase. There are, of cours…

I roughly agree with your sentiments. I am currently a Stripe customer, but if I wasn't this funding would make me think twice about doing biz with them. That sort of money creates all sorts of perverse incentives. For these reasons, we looked at Zenefits, and ended up going with the someone else. People there just have not perspective and no real reason to place value on the customer when they have money to burn. Th…

curious who you chose over Zenefits? having used other alternatives, I sing the praises of Zenefits since we've started using them.

Re: Stripe in Talks for Up to $500M in New Funding

#15

Post by andrewchambers » Thu, May 21, 2015, 3:13 AM UTC

pc wrote: post #5

kaolinite wrote: post #2

Stripe is a fully featured product and platform now with so many customers: it's the go-to payment provider for pretty much every startup. Do they really need this money? If so, that's scary. I want my payment provider to have a rock solid business model, not still burning VC cash. I would expect that at this stage Stripe ought to be pulling away from VC money, as their profits hopefully increase. There are, of cours…

Stripe CEO here: this story is false. We've never even contemplated raising such a vast amount of money.

Are you guys coming to New Zealand? I need a payment platform for a service I want to launch.

Re: Stripe in Talks for Up to $500M in New Funding

#16

Post by walterbell » Thu, May 21, 2015, 3:20 AM UTC

thinkcomp wrote: post #12

pc wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stripe CEO here: this story is false. We've never even contemplated raising such a vast amount of money.

According to Crunchbase you've already raised $190 million. https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/stripe I guess that's just shy of a "vast amount"? What planet are you guys on? It's insulting.

There is a difference between $190MM over five rounds in five years vs. one round of $500MM.

Re: Stripe in Talks for Up to $500M in New Funding

#17

Post by iamlolz » Thu, May 21, 2015, 4:02 AM UTC

I enjoyed working with Stripe, they greatly simplified the whole process. However we've had to move back to a traditional gateway due to the 7-day rolling bank deposits in Australia. Taking 6 days of cash-flow out of the business just isn't good enough.

Re: Stripe in Talks for Up to $500M in New Funding

#18

Post by Mandatum » Thu, May 21, 2015, 4:59 AM UTC

andrewchambers wrote: post #15

pc wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stripe CEO here: this story is false. We've never even contemplated raising such a vast amount of money.

Are you guys coming to New Zealand? I need a payment platform for a service I want to launch.

^ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4633971

I've been watching for updates for almost 3 years :( Gave me so much hope. There are a few local startups that have tried to replicate Stripe, but their customer service is absolutely atrocious.