The momentum of payments providers joining the MACH Alliance continues as Stripe joins Adyen in the MACH Alliance. Expect others to follow.

The simple way to look at Stripe joining the MACH Alliance is Stripe going up-market and needs to find new partners, events, and alliances.

This type of alignment can be a big part of go-to-market strategy. To the extent that you see more enterprise retailers and brands taking similar strategies, and you want those organizations as part of your addressable market, it helps to align and make them feel more comfortable about you as a provider.

This is a smart move by Stripe, particularly as it prepares for an IPO next year. Stripe's partnerships with Shopify and Amazon are fantastic, but they are also complete. What's next?

This partnership provides part of that answer: moving up-market.

I like to think of eCommerce in terms of ecosystems. In the past 5 years, the two largest ecosystems in eCommerce in the US were simple to identify:

Shopify (SMB/Mid-Market DTC eCommerce), and

Amazon (3P Marketplace)

(BTW this is not changing anytime soon.)

This means that if you were a third-party provider, these two ecosystems were the easiest places to hunt for new brands that were growing the fastest.

In the past few years, the MACH Alliance has put a pretty clear stake in the Enterprise Commerce ecosystem. Their progress has been notable (I joined as an Advisory Board Member earlier this year to continue to learn how it can help Enterprise customers I work with, not to the exclusion of other platforms like Shopify, but in addition to).

This move continues Stripe's evolution. Witness Stripe's branding in the last few years:

June 2018-2020: "New standard in online payments" (clear DTC lean)

June 2021: Payments Infrastructure for the Internet (sounds slightly more substantial)

June 2022: Financial Infrastructure for the Internet (expanding TAM further)

Financial Infrastructure basically tells the world that any kind of financial technology is fair-game to Stripe in the future, not just payments. And where are the biggest opportunities for growth long-term? With the largest companies in the world.