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Revenues soar 66% at Dublin's Stripe unit to $2.255 billion

Patrick and John Collison, the founders of Stripe
Patrick and John Collison, the founders of Stripe

Revenues at the Dublin unit of the Collison brothers-led Stripe last year soared by 66% to $2.255 billion.

New accounts filed by Stripe Payments International Holdings Ltd show that the online payments business enjoyed a $896.9m increase in revenues rising from $1.358 billion to $2.255 billion last year.

The firm is the holding company for Stripe sales in the European Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region along with the Asia Pacific (APAC) region.

Pre-tax losses reduced sharply at the Stripe unit declining by 84% from $135.5m to $22.12m last year.

The directors describe Stripe as an "Irish-American technology group".

They state that at Stripe Payments International Holdings Ltd "turnover and the associated cost of sales have increased due to growth in business from existing users, expansion into new markets, launching new products in the region, and an increase in user adoption in existing markets."

They state that "in addition, the increase in cost of sales is also driven by research and development costs".

Founded in 2010 by Patrick and John Collison, Stripe was first declared a "unicorn" - a privately-owned company that is valued at more than $1 billion - in 2014.

Today, 34-year-old Patrick Collison is Stripe chief executive with his 32-year-old brother John in the role of company President.

Last year, $640 billion in payments was processed by businesses on Stripe globally while it now operates in 45 countries and supports over 135 currencies and payment methods.

Numbers employed by Stripe across the EMEA and APAC regions last year increased from 569 to 1,048.

A breakdown of the numbers employed show that 359 were employed in administration, 328 in sales, 228 in engineering and 133 in user operations.

The firm's staff costs last year increased to $155.3m that included wage costs of $137.35m. The staff costs also include equity settled share based payments of $2m.

The $137.3m in wage costs works out at an average salary of $131,059. Key management shared pay last year totalling $3.7m.

The loss last year takes account of combined non-cash depreciation and amortisation costs last year of $9.38m along with a foreign exchange losses of $24.26m.

The loss also takes account of lease costs of $8.7m and net interest costs of $8.57m.

The company's consolidated balance sheet received a major boost during the year with a $200m share premium along with a further $200m share capital presented as equity.

It also received a fresh capital contribution of $93.69m resulting in a shareholders' deficit of $208.2m at the end of 2020 becoming shareholder funds of $265.33m at the end of last year.

The accounts show that the book value of the firm's subsidiaries was $12.24 billion at the end of last year due to an additional investment in Stripe Technology Company Ltd of $482.9m during the year.

Reporting by Gordan Deegan