Stripe attracts $18M in funding at $100M valuation

Stripe, an online-payment system company going after PayPal, is said to have raised $18 million at a $100 million valuation from Sequoia Capital and other investors, Bloomberg reported Thursday.

The deal has not been finalized but a few unnamed sources revealed that Sequoia was responsible for $17 million of the funding. Lawyer Michael J. Patrick from Silicon Valley law firm Fenwick & West LLP was quoted in Bloomberg saying, “There must be something red hot here for Sequoia to invest at that valuation. This isn’t naïve money.”

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He also makes a note of how remarkable the $100 million valuation is for such a small company.

Stripe gives online merchants the ability to accept credit card payments. The company lets anyone build custom forms and makes sure all sensitive data is safe and secure. Stripe also offers no monthly or setup fees and no hidden costs, just a transaction fee of 2.9 percent and 30 cents per successful charge.

The company is competing with PayPal, the online payment system giant, and several other payment startups. But what’s interesting is that three of PayPal’s co-founders have invested in the company. PayPal co-founders Peter Thiel and Elon Musk participated in the company’s seed round, and co-founder Max Levchin contributed to this latest round. Perhaps the company wants to foster new growth in the payment processing space, or just doesn’t view Stripe as much of a competitor.

The company has previously raised $1.8 million from investors including Ron Conway and VC firm Andreessen-Horowitz.