Stripe considered buying crypto payments company Ripple in 2013
Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
Payments company Stripe had been in talks to acquire crypto startup Ripple back in 2013, Ripple board member Asheesh Birla wrote in a Twitter post announcing his new position.
Why it matters: This blast from the past comes as Stripe is once again exploring crypto as a payments method.
Driving the news: "Ultimately the deal fell apart shortly after this dinner at El Tepa Taqueria in SF," he wrote, sharing a photo of Ripple's team with Stripe CEO Patrick Collison. "But who knows what crypto would look like today if Stripe had gotten into the industry in 2013."
Flashback: This was a very young Stripe and Ripple having acquisition talks. The 3-year-old Stripe had disclosed only about $40 million in total funding, with a valuation of up to half a billion dollars, per TechCrunch.
- Ripple was even newer to the world, having been founded only in 2012 and having gathered a couple million in funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners and others.
Now: Stripe is valued at $95 billion and Ripple at $15 billion.
Of note: Although that deal with Stripe and Ripple didn't pass, at least some of the parties involved did eventually come to their own agreements.
- Stripe would back Stellar — a non-profit payments network founded by Ripple co-founder Jed McCaleb— in 2014. McCaleb is pictured next to Collison in Birla's 2013 photo.
