The Californian startup Stripe and the private equity group Advent International have launched a joint offer to acquire PayPal, an American digital payment services company listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
STRIPE’S OFFER AND PAYPAL’S VALUATION
Stripe – owner of an infrastructure for sending and receiving payments, led by brothers Patrick and John Collison – has presented an offer of $60.5 per share that would value PayPal at around $53 billion. Considering that today PayPal shares, after rising by 19 percent, are trading at $56.4 each, the offer from Stripe is a significant premium; however, just a year ago, PayPal’s valuation was considerably higher, when the stock traded around $70.
According to sources from the Financial Times, PayPal has not shown much willingness to negotiate with Stripe and Advent: at this price, therefore, a deal does not seem likely.
HOW PAYPAL IS DOING
Compared to the peak of $360 billion reached in 2021, PayPal’s value has collapsed by 84 percent – 40 percent in the last year alone – and its growth has slowed: this is due to increasing competition in the payments market, for example from Apple Pay, Google Pay, Klarna, or Shop Pay.
To expand its business sector, last December the company filed a request with US authorities to establish a bank, called PayPal Bank, specializing in credit for small businesses.
In the first quarter of the year, PayPal’s revenues grew by 7 percent to $8.3 billion, exceeding analysts’ expectations ($8 billion). Total payment volumes increased by 8 percent year-over-year, to $464 billion.
WHAT STRIPE AND ADVENT DO
For Stripe, currently valued at $159 billion and not publicly traded, the deal with PayPal would allow access to a platform with over four hundred million users.
According to Reuters, PayPal could be jointly managed, with an equal split of shares, by Stripe and Advent. The fund, moreover, already has experience with payment companies, having supported the British Worldpay (acquired in 2025 by Global Payments) and the Italian Nexi (it exited the capital of the latter last February).
