Michael Arrington, founder of the media outlet TechCrunch, revealed on a social media platform that financial technology company Stripe has completed its largest acquisition to date, acquiring stablecoin platform Bridge for a transaction value of $1.1 billion. The software tools provided by Bridge help businesses accept stablecoin payments.
Bridge was founded by entrepreneurs Sean Yu and Zach Abrams, both of whom previously worked at the Coinbase exchange. Additionally, they had previously founded peer-to-peer payment company Evenly, which was acquired by Block.
According to Forbes, Bridge had previously raised $58 million, including a $40 million Series A funding round, valuing the company at $200 million. The $1.1 billion acquisition price represents a significant increase from its previous valuation.
As of the deadline, Stripe has not released official information regarding the acquisition of Bridge. According to The Block, if this transaction is completed, it will be the largest acquisition in Stripe’s history and the largest acquisition in the cryptocurrency industry to date.
Stripe terminated its support for Bitcoin in 2018 but officially relaunched cryptocurrency payment services in October of this year, allowing US businesses to make payments in the USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin through blockchains such as Ethereum, Solana, and Polygon. Stripe is also the first customer of the new stablecoin payment platform launched by Paxos last week.