US fintech startup Stripe has reportedly raised funds amounting to $245 million in a financing round. The funding round has valued the company at $20.25 billion, a dramatic surge from its most recent $9.2 billion valuation in 2016.
The funding round was led by billionaire investor Chase Coleman’s hedge fund Tiger Global Management, and also saw participation from DST Global and Sequoia.
The funds raised through this round are being planned to be used to fuel growth in key overseas markets such as Southeast Asia and India, where it plans to tap into the growth of the e-commerce industry to expand its payments products.
The company also claimed that more than 500 million people in Southeast Asia and India are expected to become online customers in the next three years. Along with this, the payments firm also plans to launch a new engineering hub in Singapore.
Based in San Francisco, the startup makes it easier for companies to accept online payments and bill customers. It is operational in 25 countries and charges a fee on each transaction processed through its platform. Its products have expanded to include credit cards, subscription-based billing and debit cards.
“We think this investment will be helpful as we continue to march upmarket and serve these larger companies,” said John Collison, co-founder of Stripe.
The company also announced a number of new customers, including Alphabet’s Google, ride-hailing services Didi and Uber and music streaming service Spotify. The list of customers shows how Stripe is targeting a new market of larger businesses.
Lately, the company had also partnered with digital payment providers Alipay and WeChat Pay to enable merchants using its platform globally to accept payments from hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers.