Just days after Stripe sent an email to employees detailing a potential plan to go public within one year, the digital payments giant reportedly could receive a cash infusion of $1 billion from investment firm Thrive Capital.
The possible funding from Thrive and other investors could place the valuation of Stripe, whose customers include Instacart, Shopify, and Amazon, at between $55 billion and $60 billion, the Information reported on Monday evening.
This would be approximately a 40% decrease from Stripe's 2021 valuation of as much as $95 billion, when the pandemic increased demand for online shopping and thereby digital payments infrastructure. Stripe was considered the second-most valuable private startup at the time, trailing only ByteDance, the Chinese company behind TikTok.
The reported investment from Thrive Capital, headed by Joshua Kushner, is part of a larger effort to raise as much as $3 billion. Stripe plans to use the money to cover tax liabilities and buy stock from employees, some of whose stock grants are set to expire by the end of next year, according to the New York Times.
Last Thursday, Stripe cofounders Patrick and John Collison told employees that the company will either publicly list itself on the market or allow employees to sell shares privately within one year. Stripe, which has a number of crypto offerings, said it did not need to raise more money, which is why it was only considering a direct market listing.
In 2022, traditional public offerings in the U.S. only garnered $8.6 billion, the lowest total in two decades, according to the Wall Street Journal. In October, Instacart even pulled out of a public offering as it stared down the weak market. How Stripe, one of the most valuable private startups, responds to the shaky public offerings market may signal how other private businesses with valuations in the billions navigate the waters.
Thrive Capital has previously invested in startups like Warby Parker and Elon Musk's SpaceX. Its billion-dollar investment in Stripe is one of biggest bets to date, as founder Joshua Kushner looks to make a name for himself beyond the shadow of his brother, Jared Kushner, previously a White House adviser to Donald Trump.
A spokesperson for Stripe did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fortune.
