Image: Kamira/Shutterstock
Stripe’s tool for helping global start-ups to do business in America is helping US firms grow locally, too.
Stripe – the e-commerce platform valued at $9bn and headed by Irish brothers Patrick and John Collison – is bringing its Atlas tool to American businesses.
Atlas was unveiled at Mobile World Congress last year to help international organisations get everything they need to do business in America.
It was a kind of API-style approach to a fundamental set of business problems. The toolkit enabled businesses targeting the US to partner with Silicon Valley Bank for financing, Orrick for legal and AWS for cloud.
While the internet is borderless, the reality is that selling across borders is a bureaucratic nightmare. Atlas takes care of frictions such as incorporating in Delaware, opening a US bank account with a tax ID number and creating a Stripe account to accept payments.
Atlas is making a world of difference for entrepreneurs
John and Patrick Collison. Image: Stripe
Atlas reduced the process down to a single web form. Since then, entrepreneurs from 124 countries have used the platform to start their companies.
However, it has become apparent that Atlas is something that start-ups within US borders could use, too.
As well as improvements to the core product, Stripe is responding to the realisation that US entrepreneurs were already using Atlas to simplify their affairs.
“When we launched Atlas, we were focused on making it easier for entrepreneurs outside the US to get started,” explained Stripe’s Taylor Francis.
“Since then, we’ve heard from thousands of entrepreneurs located within the US who want to use Atlas, and we’ve worked with many founders based in the US to get their companies started.
“And it’s not a surprise – Atlas sets up every company with the standard defaults and banking infrastructure used by top US tech companies. So, starting today, Atlas is now officially open for business for US founders, and we’re working to add more benefits to Atlas that will specifically be useful to founders in the US,” Francis said.
Stripe was founded seven years ago when Patrick was 22 and John was 19. The company’s technology platform enables hundreds of thousands of businesses to securely accept payments and create new revenue streams.
Stripe recently raised $150m in a round led by CapitalG and General Catalyst, in addition to its existing investors, which valued the company at $9bn.
John (26) and Patrick (28) have each amassed wealth valued at $1.02bn apiece, according to the recent Forbes Billionaires list.
