Stripe, the funds and fintech large at the moment valued at $50 billion, typically feels prefer it has been without end getting ready to a public itemizing. However within the absence of any concrete IPO strikes and the transparency that the itemizing course of brings with it, in the present day it published an annual update with a couple of new numbers that paint an image of the place the corporate is standing proper now.

In response to the replace signed by co-founders and brothers Patrick and John Collison (CEO and president, respectively), Stripe processed transactions totaling $817 billion in 2022, up 26% from 2021 (when it processed $640 billion), and its massive firm checklist has grown. Stripe now has greater than 100 corporations every processing greater than $1 billion in funds over the platform.

The variety of new clients is up by 19% this 12 months, averaging out to 1,000+ new companies becoming a member of each day. And Stripe additionally appears to be discovering that its resonance with new clients is increasing geographically: Whereas the U.S. remains to be Stripe’s greatest market, it mentioned that 55% of recent clients got here this 12 months from different nations. (Stripe’s energetic in 50 markets at the moment.)

That is the second 12 months operating that the Collisons have revealed this observe (here is the one from April 2022). I’ve been advised that they’ve been writing them for years for inside functions, and so that you would possibly suppose that publishing extra overtly might communicate to constructing a extra public profile. But when that’s the case, it’s one which could be very nicely managed.

You received’t discover easy solutions to powerful questions — or a lot point out of the powerful questions, both.

Stripe raised $6.5 billion on a $50 billion valuation final month, a serious step down from the $95 billion valuation it had two years prior. In 2022, we requested if Stripe was “cheap” at $95 billion. Nicely, we have now a solution to that now: It seems to be now prefer it was reverse, that it was overvalued by some $45 billion. That begs the query of whether or not it’s nonetheless overvalued now at $50 billion. That’s a subject not explored within the letter.

Nor does the letter contact on one of many very greatest themes of the final 12 months in tech: layoffs. Not solely is that this, and the larger layoff pattern, omitted within the 12 months in assessment, however Stripe notably doesn’t embody any point out in any respect about its staff, worker numbers or the place it at the moment stands on hiring. Stripe has not been immune to those itself, letting go of 14% of its staff in November, so clearly it’s a theme that’s fairly near the corporate and its technique.

There are different issues it could be nice to know extra about, comparable to the place the corporate at the moment sits with income and revenue (or loss).

Or what share of its enterprise is attributable to its core funds product lately, versus the efficiency of its newer and adjoining traces of enterprise instruments in areas like tax, fraud safety, firm incorporation and so forth?

And whereas Stripe has been a serious story on the enterprise investing entrance for years, it’s additionally been amassing fairly an enormous portfolio of investments itself. A few of these are monetary, the corporate has mentioned previously, however some could be attention-grabbing maneuvers to assist. How are they doing, and is there a big-picture technique behind that exercise?

One factor that you could glean from the letter — though it’s not explicitly acknowledged — is that development is most undoubtedly slowing. Transaction volumes this 12 months might have been up 26%, however the 12 months earlier than the speed was 60%. And 1,000 new corporations a day is a powerful quantity, however not as spectacular as 1,400/day a 12 months in the past.

Granted, a part of the enlargement in enterprise final 12 months was as a result of big increase in on-line funds through the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, however it underscores how any firm working in digital commerce, even probably the most golden of them, nonetheless are dealing with very totally different realities now, a few of them are fairly tough.

The corporate’s technique for years has been one in every of diversification: It’s rolled out many companies that complement its core funds product, banking on these being an effective way to construct stronger relationships with clients, and to hopefully construct out larger income streams and margins, too. That’s possible one thing that we’ll see much more from the corporate, typically chasing the most recent shiny idea — be it cryptocurrency or generative AI — or typically simply addressing very basic ache factors for these operating companies on-line, comparable to accumulating gross sales tax in a number of jurisdictions.

It’s clearly an enormous enterprise, and an enormous alternative. As Jareau Wadé eloquently lays out in a recent essay, Stripe’s impression and place available in the market within the final decade have been undoubtedly big, however its success will not be inevitable, and with a plethora of opponents and decisions for customers on the market, that success might not appear to be a growth within the better scheme of issues. Not one thing you would possibly learn in Stripe’s letter, however a salient level all the identical.