What we can tell about Stripe’s valuation from its top customers and its publicly traded peers — Stripe is one of the most highly valued private startups yet to IPO. In March 2021, the company raised a Series H financing that valued the company at $95 billion! There were reports in June of that year that Stripe shares sold on the secondary market at an implied valuation…

A who’s who of sponsor banks and issuer processors for the modern debit/credit card — A fascinating trend has happened in fintech in recent years, where financial services are being delivered by non-financial companies. Or as a16z General Partner Angela Strange coined the phrase: “every company will be a fintech company.” One of the best examples of this trend is with debit and credit cards…

How to make sense of tech stock valuations when prices have dropped 50%+ — Probably comes as no surprise that widespread concerns over inflation (no longer considered temporary), slower economic growth (and depending who you ask, a recession), not to mention the war in Ukraine, and the ongoing waves of COVID-19 variants (we’re now in the 5th wave), have collectively caused the public markets…

How Square’s pivot to Cash App has defined a generation of Fintechs — If you’ve followed Fintech or payments over the last year, you’ve witnessed Square’s absolutely meteoric rise to a $115 billion market cap — the company has appreciated by 400% in less than two years!

Why (and how) SaaS companies have become payments businesses — Earlier this week, GoDaddy announced its agreement to acquire a payment service provider, Poynt. And private equity software specialist, Thoma Bravo, announced its plans to acquire Realpage in a take-private transaction. What is the common thread? These deals point to the fast-emerging trend of Integrated Payments. Not too long ago…

A closer look at the economics from each $1 of payment volume — In 2019, Visa and MasterCard generated combined revenues of almost $40 billion. Meanwhile, PayPal and Square collectively generated revenues of $22 billion. And companies less visible to the everyday consumer, such as First Data, Worldpay, and Global Payments, generated revenues of another $18 billion. When I first started researching the…

The latest chapter in the history of payment processing / merchant services. — You may have noticed in my last post about the payments ecosystem that I pointed to PayPal, Square, and Stripe as examples of Payment Gateways — admittedly, this was a bit of an over-simplification. While companies like Square do provide Gateways to enable online credit card acceptance, they play a…

A beginner’s guide to the key players in the payments ecosystem. — So a few years ago, when I first started looking into the payments industry, I was intrigued by the growing wave of private financings — in unicorns such as Stripe and Adyen— not to mention the relatively successful IPO of Square . Fast forward just a few years and Stripe…

To truly be consumer-ready, VR needs to be accessible to the average consumer. — 2016 has been such an important year for VR, largely as a result of several highly anticipated HMDs, including the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Razer OSVR HDK2, and Sony PS VR (launching soon). …