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Stripe valued at $159B, 2025 annual letter

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Re: Stripe valued at $159B, 2025 annual letter

#121

Post by bryanlarsen »

tptacek wrote: post #105
bryanlarsen wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reverse is much more true. When private equity takes a public company private, there's a 50% chance they'll kill the company. Also, private companies fail at a much higher rate than public ones do.

I don't think PE buyouts are the right comparison here; we're talking about companies that never go public versus the ones that do. And, of course private companies fail at a much higher rate. The set of private companies includes every company that doesn't succeed to the point where it has the realistic choice to go public. Again: wrong comparison.

A general IPO is also not the right comparison. The events that kill companies are changes in control whether they happen from going public or going private. If Stripe IPO's, the Collison's will stay firmly in control, and approximately nothing will change at Stripe.

Re: Stripe valued at $159B, 2025 annual letter

#122

Post by rprend »

purple_ferret wrote: post #97

Braintree had $1.53 trillion TPV in 2023[0], and it's just a subsidiary of Paypal which has tanked to $40 billion market cap despite revenue and profit that are probably lightyears ahead of Stripe. Honestly, I wouldn't touch Stripe with a ten foot poll at this valuation. Fintech is an industry that just disappoints in the end. [0] https://www.paypal.com/us/braintree

This multiple is indirectly a bet on AI growth , because Stripe is the payment processor for the vast majority of AI startups.

Re: Stripe valued at $159B, 2025 annual letter

#123

Post by doctorpangloss »

fourseventy wrote: post #2

It's insane that they aren't public yet. Their investors must be pressuring them like crazy to IPO.

why do you figure? in some sectors, IPOs were literally 10x larger in 2023 than 2016, but i am not sure specifically about fintech. ask pitchbook. that increases IRR by a whole +1.4, just by waiting.

Re: Stripe valued at $159B, 2025 annual letter

#124

Post by tptacek »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #121
tptacek wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think PE buyouts are the right comparison here; we're talking about companies that never go public versus the ones that do. And, of course private companies fail at a much higher rate. The set of private companies includes every company that doesn't succeed to the point where it has the realistic choice to go public. Again: wrong comparison.

A general IPO is also not the right comparison. The events that kill companies are changes in control whether they happen from going public or going private. If Stripe IPO's, the Collison's will stay firmly in control, and approximately nothing will change at Stripe.

I'm not coming down on either side of the public/private thing, just saying that take-privates and failed small private companies aren't meaningful comparisons to make.

Re: Stripe valued at $159B, 2025 annual letter

#125

Post by hmokiguess »

krainboltgreene wrote: post #109
hmokiguess wrote: post #95

I remember when Stripe started and it was super fun to set it up as a developer and build stuff. Today I find it does way too much for small projects and the fees are too high. Does anyone knows of good alternatives for that? (Someone recently shared https://astrafi.com/ with me and it seemed promising, with much better fees, but I haven't tested or used anything other than Stripe)

You can't really do better than stripe. The onboarding overhead is because of fraud and the costs are basically barely above interchange.

Sure, though not every small project needs to worry about that. Perhaps the payment workflow is a tight loop that has KYC through physical memberships (ID + Photo), say a gym membership for example, and the entire system is private just needs a gateway to do transactions.

Re: Stripe valued at $159B, 2025 annual letter

#126

Post by skinnymuch »

jez wrote: post #108
purple_ferret wrote: post #97

Braintree had $1.53 trillion TPV in 2023[0], and it's just a subsidiary of Paypal which has tanked to $40 billion market cap despite revenue and profit that are probably lightyears ahead of Stripe. Honestly, I wouldn't touch Stripe with a ten foot poll at this valuation. Fintech is an industry that just disappoints in the end. [0] https://www.paypal.com/us/braintree

Paypal TPV YoY growth for 2025 was 7%[1]. Stripe cites 34% growth for the same period and metric. [1]: https://s205.q4cdn.com/875401827/files/doc_financials/2025/q...

I’m not the most well versed but isn’t that still insane to be 4x valuation of PayPal? Maybe it’s more PayPal valuation being crap vs Stripe being too high. Adyen is close to PayPal with a PE of 30 (vs PayPal’s sub-10) and Adyen like PayPal is close to being back to its IPO level.

PayPal seems crazy when it has acquired businesses like Honey (probably hasn’t helped) and Braintree/Venmo since then. Pretty funny PayPal was spun off as the better growth stock but eBay has tripled since then and their market caps are the same now.

Re: Stripe valued at $159B, 2025 annual letter

#127

Post by Stromgren »

hmokiguess wrote: post #95

I remember when Stripe started and it was super fun to set it up as a developer and build stuff. Today I find it does way too much for small projects and the fees are too high. Does anyone knows of good alternatives for that? (Someone recently shared https://astrafi.com/ with me and it seemed promising, with much better fees, but I haven't tested or used anything other than Stripe)

I find Stripes fees excessive too, but I don’t think I’ll ever switch. I’ve been running a small SaaS product on the side of other work for >15 years and if it taught me one thing, it’s that I need to reduce the things I have to maintain, reduce manual work, reduce the things that can go wrong. There’s nothing worse than having to fix a bug in a codebase you haven’t touched for a year and possibly in a feature you haven’t touched in many years. I simply love that Stripe handles not just the payment, but the payment application, the subscription billing, the price settings, the exports for bookkeeping. I’ve had a few instances where my site was used fraudulently to check stolen credit cards and it was quickly flagged and I could resolve it with Stripe. I’m sure someone can mention alternatives and I’m sure that I could build something that would work myself, but they keep a big part of what it takes to run the business out of my mind and I’m willing to pay for that.

Re: Stripe valued at $159B, 2025 annual letter

#128

Post by WheatMillington »

coldpie wrote: post #55
jameskilton wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stripe has been doing annual tender offers. Their stance on not being public yet is that they don't need to be, as an IPO is mainly a way to raise money. As an ex-Stripe, I understand the sentiment, and the tender offers are a nice middle ground for now, but I still would like to see them go public eventually.

Going public is the fastest way to turn a solid, functioning business into a hideous, infinite-growth chasing ghoul that everyone hates. Don't do it.

As opposed to VC owners, who are famously satisfied with slow growth. Right?

Re: Stripe valued at $159B, 2025 annual letter

#129

Post by rprend »

jez wrote: post #116
rprend wrote: post #73

1.6 percent of global GDP blows my mind.

For comparison, Visa's stated FY 2025 (ended Sep 30, 2025) payments volume was $14.2T. rough math, but: $14.2T / $1.9T * 1.6% = 12% global GDP

I was curious, and the American Clearing House has a TPV of $93 trillion, which means ACH is 78%?? That seems too high.

Oh - not all bank transfers count in GDP. I often move money from one account to another.

Note that Visa has the same issue: withdrawing money from an ATM shouldn’t count towards GDP! Neither does Vemo-ing a friend to settle up a split restaurant bill (my Venmo is attached to my debit card).

Re: Stripe valued at $159B, 2025 annual letter

#130

Post by reactordev »

jez wrote: post #116
rprend wrote: post #73

1.6 percent of global GDP blows my mind.

For comparison, Visa's stated FY 2025 (ended Sep 30, 2025) payments volume was $14.2T. rough math, but: $14.2T / $1.9T * 1.6% = 12% global GDP

At least it’s not 24.9%

Americans and credit have an unhealthy relationship.

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