Fast-growing Stripe is not yet a public company and who knows if it ever will be. But what's clear is that other public fintech companies — namely payment processors PayPal Holdings (PYPL), Adyen (ADYEY), and Fiserv (FI)— are being impacted by Stripe's growth.

Privately held Stripe recently published its annual shareholder letter. Cofounders Patrick and John Collision called 2024 "an unusually good year."

The company was profitable in 2024 and processed $1.4 trillion in total payment volume, up 38% from the prior year. Wall Street analysts view Stripe as a market share taker versus PayPal's Braintree unit, Adyen and Fiserv's Carat business.

With its recent $1.1 billion acquisition of crypto firm Bridge, San Francisco-based Stripe is poised to compete with Square-parent Block (XYZ).

Stablecoin Acquisition Eyed

"We expect the growth acceleration this year came from share gains potentially up market and outside the United States, creating relatively new vectors for competition," said JP Morgan analyst Tien-tsin Huang in a report.

"In e-commerce, they remain a formidable competitor to Adyen, PayPal's Braintree and Fiserv while increasingly competing beyond e-commerce-only payments and up market. In our view, Stripe's advances around stablecoin via the Bridge acquisition should be closely monitored."

Bridge facilitates the movement, storage, and acceptance of stablecoin with existing payment systems, including cross-border transfers. Elon Musk-controlled SpaceX's Starlink broadband service uses Bridge to process payments.

Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies whose value is pegged to another asset to maintain its price at a certain value, often $1. PayPal last year launched a stablecoin cryptocurrency.

Stripe Targets AI Startups

Founded in 2010, Stripe's early customers included Uber Technologies (UBER), Shopify (SHOP) and Instacart. It later targeted big companies moving to online marketplaces, especially during the Covid emergency.

More recently, Stripe has leveraged its tech startup roots to target artificial intelligence companies.

According to the 2024 annual shareholder letter, half of Fortune 100 companies are Stripe customers, including Nvidia (NVDA), PepsiCo (PEP), and Comcast (CMCSA).

"Stripe is benefiting from AI-related businesses ramping (partnerships with OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity) with over 700 AI agent startups launching on its platform in 2024, along with continued large enterprise wins and ongoing traction with vertical SaaS platforms," said UBS analyst Timothy Chiodo in a report.

PayPal Stock Retreats

He noted that strategic changes at PayPal's Braintree, which has been renegotiating contracts, may have opened the door to Stripe gaining market share. PayPal stock has retreated 17% in 2025. Square stock has dropped 29%.

One key strength of Stripe is an application programming interface that easily integrates its payment technology into the software systems of customers.

At TD Cowen, analyst Bryan Bergin said in a report: "Embedded payments has long been a focus within vertical SaaS and Stripe has raised the bar for ease of integration."

He added: "Stripe is plowing capital back into its platform and claims to be reinvesting a much higher proportion of earnings into research and development versus rivals."

Stripe IPO Not Expected Near-Term

For investors, the bad news is that an initial public offering still appears far off, despite Stripe's fast growth. Cofounders Patrick and John Collision have preferred keeping Stripe private.

"Stripe IPO plans appear off the table for now, as it opted again to provide liquidity via tender offer," said Bergin.

Former and current employees sold shares in a February funding round that valued Stripe at $91.5 billion. Big shareholders of Stripe include Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and Goldman Sachs's growth equity fund. Shopify also is an investor.

Follow Reinhardt Krause on Twitter @reinhardtk_tech for updates on artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and cloud computing.

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