Stripe Punts Decision on IPO Till Next Year Amid Economic Gloom

The public may soon be able to buy shares in payments processor Stripe.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Thursday (Jan. 26) that Stripe is considering either going public or allowing employees to sell their shares within the next 12 months.

Stripe is more likely to conduct a direct listing than an initial public offering (IPO) because it doesn’t need to raise capital but does have employees and other investors who would like to be able to sell their shares, according to the WSJ report, which cited unnamed sources.

Contacted by PYMNTS, a Stripe spokesperson declined to comment on the report.

This report comes after a year in which the PYMNTS FinTech IPO Index saw a loss of more than 51%. That was roughly in line with the 52% Global X FinTech ETF decline noted by WSJ and significantly worse than the 33% slide in the Nasdaq.

The news also comes two weeks after it was reported that Stripe had reduced its internal valuation for the third time since last June.

The latest reduction, gauged at 11%, represented an implied valuation of $63 billion for the company, The Information reported Jan. 11.

As PYMNTS reported at the time, Stripe had been valued at $95 billion following a $600 million funding round in 2021, slashed its internal valuation by 28% in June 2022 and then made a smaller cut in October 2022 that added up to a 40% reduction over six months.

The lower internal price — known as a 409a valuation — is different from the valuation decided by investors. It can help employees by lowering the cost of their equity in the company.

The report also comes on the heels of an announcement that Amazon plans to “significantly expand” its use of the Stripe payment platform.

“Under the new agreement, Stripe will become a strategic payments partner for Amazon in the U.S., Europe and Canada, processing a significant portion of Amazon’s total payment volume,” Stripe said in a Monday (Jan. 23) press release. “Stripe will be used across Amazon’s business units, including Prime, Audible, Kindle, Amazon Pay, Buy With Prime and More.”