Stripe (company)

Stripe is an Irish technology company that allows both private individuals and businesses to accept payments over the Internet. Stripe focuses on providing the technical, fraud prevention, and banking infrastructure required to operate online payment systems.

Payment logistics

Using Stripe, web developers can integrate payment processing into their websites without having to register and maintain a merchant account.[3] Stripe has a seven-day waiting period for transactions, during which time it profiles the businesses involved to protect against potential fraud. Stripe then transfers the funds directly into the bank account linked to the payee.

History

John and Patrick Collison founded Stripe in 2010[4] Stripe began as a startup called /dev/payments. The name resulted in misspellings and confusion to those outside the company, so the company renamed itself Stripe.[5] In June 2010, Stripe received seed funding from Y Combinator, a startup accelerator.[1] In May 2011, Stripe received a $2 million investment from venture capitalists Peter Thiel, Sequoia Capital, and Andreessen Horowitz.[6] In February 2012, Stripe received a $18 million Series A investment led by Sequoia Capital at a $100 million valuation.[7] Stripe launched publicly in September 2011 after an extensive private beta.[8] Less than a year after its public launch, Stripe received a $20 million Series B investment from General Catalyst, Sequoia Capital, Peter Thiel, Redpoint Ventures, Chris Dixon, and Aaron Levie.[9] In March, 2013, Stripe acquired chat and task-management application Kickoff.[10]

In March 2014, CEO Patrick Collison announced that Stripe would support bitcoin transactions.

Patrick Collison

Patrick Collison (born 9 September 1988), is an Irish entrepreneur from County Limerick. Patrick is the cofounder and CEO of Stripe, which he started with his brother John Collison in 2010. He was the winner of the 41st Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition in 2005 at the age of sixteen. He lives in San Francisco.

Early life

Patrick Collison was born to Lily and Denis Collison in 1988. The eldest of three children (two younger brothers, John and Tommy), Collison took his first computer course when he was eight years old at the University of Limerick and began learning computer programming at the age of ten.[1]

Collison was educated in Gaelscoil Aonach Urmhumhan, Nenagh, before attending Castletroy College in Castletroy, County Limerick.