Stripe, the Irish online payments platform competing with Square and PayPal, is reportedly preparing to go public after appointing a law firm to explore the listing, according to U.S. News.
The company has hired Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton to explore the first steps for going public and to help with early-stage listing prep. Although there is no clear timing plan at this moment, the next step for Stripe would be to hire investment banks, with the listing not likely for another year.
According to the report, Stripe is considering going public through a direct listing instead of an IPO, due to the lack of need to raise money.
Founded in 2010, Stripe processes hundreds of billions of dollars every year for market-leading tech company’s across the worth like Google, Amazon and Uber.
Stripe’s most recent funding was in March which set its valuation at $95 billion, making it the most valuable private company in Silicon Valley, according to FinExtra.
Stripe has headquarters in San Francisco and Dublin, where it announced plans to add 1,000 jobs. The company has been growing to meet challenges from Chinese technology firms Ant Group and ByteDance, who have valuations close to $200 billion, and are competing for the title of world’s most valuable startup, according to Reuters.
The company was founded by brothers Patrick and John Collison, and has used private funding from names like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and Google’s venture capital arm.
In other recent fintech news, bank challenger Bunq recently raised the largest European Series A ever at $228 million. Fleet financing startup Coast also raised an $8 million seed round.