Online card payment startup Stripe launches in the UK
Online payment enabler Stripe is making its first foray into Europe, bringing its service to the UK
Stripe is today launching in Britain, allowing UK businesses to sign up and accept card payments on websites and in mobile apps.
Businesses using Stripe can accept all major card types – including Visa, MasterCard and Amex – while supporting multiple currencies: UK users can charge in USD, GBP and EUR. Pricing in the UK starts at 2.4 per cent plus £0.20 per transaction and VAT.
“We’re incredibly excited to introduce Stripe to businesses in the UK,” says John Collison, co-founder of Stripe.
Stripe was founded by brothers John and Patrick Collison in 2010 in the US with the aim of making it easier to accept card payments online. The company has received around $40m in investment from top Silicon Valley players including PayPal founders Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, SV Angel, General Catalyst and others.
Global intentions
Speaking to Tech City News, Collison explains that he and brother Patrick have always intended for Stripe to be international.
“From day one, we’ve considered Stripe as a global product. The very first lines of code that we wrote included a currency function, so it would be international. The amazing thing about the internet is that it connects everyone, everywhere – geography ceases to be relevant. We take that for granted,” says Collison.
“What’s holding the internet back today is that when it comes to paid products, geography is actually still so important. With Stripe, we’re trying to make the whole internet economy more cohesive and more global, to make it easier for anyone, anywhere to accept payments from the whole internet.”
Stripe’s expansion into Britain is just the beginning, adds Collison. Other European countries will quickly follow suit: “London is just a hub for the European market. It was clear in our minds that we would expand into the UK first. It’s just easier to set up here and, for hiring, London has a deep talent pool.”
Currently, Stripe’s London office has four employees, but the company is looking to hire more, including engineers, evangelists and technical support experts. In total, the company employs around 55 staff (based mainly in San Francisco, where the company is headquartered).
In the US and Canada, Stripe is being used by companies including Heroku, Foursquare, Evite, Grooveshark and Reddit. Collison hopes that with Stripe’s expansion into Europe, the company’s payment mechanism will be adopted by many more. A number of UK companies have already signed up, including Virgin Pure and Thread.com. Stripe has also partnered with UK platforms Kashflow and FreeAgent, while launching new support for UK users with Shopify, Bigcommerce, Squarespace, BigCartel, Wave and more.
“Stripe really stood out as the best product when we were choosing a new payment solution and it was exceptionally quick and easy to integrate,” says Virgin Pure interim CEO Joe Cohen. “Having full control over our checkout experience has made a big difference. Since switching to Stripe, our sales have been doubling and even tripling by the day.”