Payments Startup Stripe Lands $80 Million Investment Ahead of Twitter Partnership

Stripe, the San Francisco-based payments startup founded by two 20-something brothers, has raised an $80 million investment, the company said this evening. The Series C investment, which brings the company’s total funding to $120 million, valued the startup at $1.75 billion, Stripe said.

Investors include Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz. PayPal founders Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and Max Levchin have also invested in the company.

Stripe, launched in 2011 by Patrick and John Collison (pictured above; Patrick at left), makes tools that allow companies to start accepting credit-card payments on websites and mobile apps within a day via the company’s APIs, which has been an attractive sell to developers at a wide range of startups. Customers include ride-sharing service Lyft, e-commerce store platform Shopify and grocery-delivery startup Instacart.

Last week, Re/code reported that Stripe was nearing a deal with Twitter that would enable people to purchase products directly from tweets. If Twitter finds any success in its forthcoming commerce initiative, Stripe is positioned to reap significant benefits from the alliance.

Stripe’s competitors have included PayPal and Braintree, the Chicago-based payments company that PayPal acquired for $800 million late last year. PayPal said it acquired Braintree to gain a strong foothold in payment processing for the growing number of businesses that largely accept transactions on mobile phones. Uber and Fab are two of Braintree’s highest-profile customers.

Before acquiring Braintree, PayPal approached Stripe about a possible acquisition, sources told me last year.

Stripe, which has 85 employees, said the new funding would help it expand internationally. It currently operates in 12 countries.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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