Fintech Stripe has reportedly acquired stablecoin platform Bridge for $1.1 billion, according to an update shared via social media by tech industry entrepreneur Michael Arrington.
As mentioned in the announcement, this deal notably makes it Stripe’s largest acquisition to date, and also one of the most valuable deals recently in the crypto and blockchain space.
Established by entrepreneurs Sean Yu and Zach Abrams, Bridge has become one of the software solution providers supporting enterprises with accepting stablecoin payments.
This strategic acquisition is providing sizeable returns for Bridge investors at a price tag that reflects considerable premiums from the $200 million valuation the firm had achieved during its Series A round when it acquired $40 million out of its total $58 million in VC funding.
The latest deal comed as the firm begins to focus sharply on its expansion efforts into crypto-related services. The financial infrastructure Fintech had brought back digital currency payment support for firms in the U.S. fairly recently, enabling stablecoin USDC transfers on several different blockchain networks, including Ethereum, Solana and Polygon.
The acquisition notably comes after Stripe’s collab with digital assets firm Coinbase in June of this year, which involved Stripe integrating the Base layer-2 network into its crypto payment product line and making itself available as a payment method via the Coinbase Wallet.
The deal marks Stripe‘s focus on extending its digital payment infrastructure from a robust market position that had valued it at around $70 billion.
For the team at Bridge, this is the second exit following their previous company Evenly, a Venmo competitor, had also been sold to Block in 2013. \
It’s worthwhile to note that the co-founder of Bridge, Zach Abrams, had been working as a senior executive at Coinbase.
This latest acquisition by Stripe confirms that a growing number of industry participants in the Fintech space are realizing that stablecoins are one of the crypto ecosystem’s most promising innovations. More than likely, many more use-cases for stablecoins will emerge besides just being used for large-volume crypto trades. In fact, many freelancers now get paid in stablecoins and they serve as means to complete remittance and cross-border payments.