The Irish Times

Stripe, the online payments company founded by Limerick brothers Patrick and John Collison, is “ripe for an initial public offering (IPO),” according to Manhattan Venture Research in New York.

While the fast-growing company has repeatedly said it has no plans to seek a market listing, Santosh Rao, head of research at Manhattan, notes that the fintech space “has been buzzing with activity”, with consolidation the name of the game.

In Manhattan’s recent Venture Bytes monthly report, Mr. Rao highlights a number of fintech-focused “megadeals” that have taken place over the past 12 months. These include Fis’s $43 billion (€39 billion) deal for Worldpay, Fiserv’s £22 billion (€26 billion) acquisition of First Data, and Global Payments $21.5 billion purchase of TSYS.

In addition, he notes there also been numerous smaller deals, including PayPal’s $4 billion deal for Honey Science Corporation, and Visa’s $5.3 billion acquisition of Plaid.

Mr. Rao suggests that the rapid acceleration of the digital economy is driving fundamental changes in global commerce. This, he says, is good news for market leaders Stripe, PayPal, Square and Ayden, who between them dominate the lucrative payments sector with 54 percent of the $1.3 trillion market.

Stripe, which was founded in 2010, is valued at $35.3 billion, having raised $1.3 billion across seven funding rounds.

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