- FintechGeneralM&A
- October 21, 2021
- 5 minutes read
Deal: Stripe Buys Indian Fintech Startup Recko
Privately-held payments giant Stripe has ventured into India for its latest acquisition and its first in the country. It’s reached…
Privately-held payments giant Stripe has ventured into India for its latest acquisition and its first in the country. It’s reached a deal to buy Recko, a platform for online retailers to track and automate “payments reconciliation”, a process that entails comparing accounting records against bank statements to make sure they are correct and in agreement.
Stripe is buying Recko for an undisclosed amount.
- Recko is a good value-add to Stripe’s suite of payments software for online retailers. It’ll be integrated with Stripe’s platform, giving its customers another tool to make processing payments as easy as possible.
- Since its inception, Stripe has used strategic acquisitions to buff up its payments products keeping its customers satisfied. Its acquisitions have come from across the globe, including the US, Ireland, Nigeria, and now India. Nigerian startup Paystack was Stripe’s most expensive purchase, with a $200mn price tag.
- Also, Stripe has invested in over three-dozen fintech startups across the globe and these startups are often partners that it benefits from doing business with. Such investments and acquisitions have been a vital ramp to Stripe’s mega-growth over the years.
Though deal terms weren’t disclosed, Recko’s purchase was likely negotiated in the millions, at least for the fact that the Bangalore-based startup has raised $7mn in funding from VCs. Its investors include Vertex Ventures, Prime Venture Partners, and Taavet Hinrikus, the co-founder of British fintech giant Wise.
- Stripe is one of Silicon Valley’s best success stories, so much that it can be called “mind-boggling”. Its sharp execution has seen it morph from a small startup founded in 2009 into one with $7.4bn in sales last year, with VCs drooling along the way.
- Stripe was valued at $95bn from its last funding round, making it the second most valuable US startup, only beaten by SpaceX (CB Insights data). It has raised over $2bn from VCs, a substantial sum at face value but minute compared to its valuation of $95bn.
