Stripe Caught In the Middle of Battle between Amazon and Shopify
Stripe Caught In the Middle of Battle between Amazon and Shopify
In what seems like a relatively straightforward "contract renewal" e-mail turned into PR, Amazon has indicated it is doubling down on Stripe. And Stripe's CTO is doubling down on the company's reliance on AWS.
Stripe has famously delayed its IPO for years past what many watchers thought and has recently cut 14% of its workforce while at the same time reducing its valuation.
Still.
Stripe's position at the very center of eCommerce has never been stronger. Can you imagine any other company being so essential to eCommerce infrastructure?
Need I remind you that Shopify has reportedly invested more than $350M in Stripe itself? In the past, that stake had been reported at 20%, but it may not have ever been that high, and if it was, it's likely much less now, right?
In truth, it seems like an existential risk to eCommerce to have so much wrapped in one company.
Stripe is still known as the best for small businesses, and as you add more volume, other players come in and offer cheaper rates. Perhaps that's changing. Given the state of the economy, it makes sense that like Shopify is moving up-market, Stripe might as well.
The fact that the options are so few likely means that we will see more companies start in the payments space; at the same time could someone begin a more serious rollup strategy?
Remember how over the last decade or so, Stamps.com rolled up a lot of the shipping providers? While there have been a few acquisitions here and there, it seems like an important space that a large player will want to continue to roll up -- and that rollup is something a large backer might support.
In the payments space, this is likely lower margin business but the volumes are just tremendous and it's clear that Amazon has incredible trust in what Stripe is doing.
