Stripe, the massive payments company and darling of tech circles, has long been on IPO watch. The startup now may be putting its foot on the gas and speeding toward a public listing, or a private market transaction—and VCs have a lot of thoughts about what it means for the rest of Silicon Valley.
The payments titan hired bankers (Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, to be specific) to explore either taking the company public or doing a deal that would allow employees to sell stock within the next 12 months, co-founders Patrick and John Collison told employees on Thursday, The Information reported. There have been reports of Stripe inching toward going public in recent years, but the current urgency appears to be due to resolving a stock awards issue for employees, where longtime employees’ restricted stock units (RSUs) are set to expire soon—hence the push for some sort of liquidity event. But per the report, it’s more likely that Stripe will raise capital privately than go public. Stripe declined to comment to me.
