Stripe, one of Silicon Valley’s most valued fintech companies, is expanding to Dubai in its first move into the Middle East.
The digital payments company is valued at $95 billion and is one of the most valuable private fintech firms in the world.
Stripe CEO Patrick Collinson said that over 10,000 companies have already requested an invitation shortly the Dubai entrance was announced.
“We’re going to have to queue things for the first few weeks to manage demand [and] ensure smooth service. Sorry. We’re expanding as quickly as we can,” he wrote on Twitter.
Also, more than 10,000 companies have already requested an invitation. We're going to have to queue things for the first few weeks to manage demand + ensure smooth service. Sorry! We're expanding as quickly as we can.
— Patrick Collison (@patrickc) April 6, 2021
The number of requests indicates pent-up demand from the market, and Stripe has worked with UAE companies including Illusions Online, ChatFood, WeKeep and Aceplace through beta testing.
“Stripe arriving in the UAE will undoubtedly accelerate the digital shift in the economy and will help attract global technology businesses to expand to the region, Muhammed Mekki, founding partner of AstroLabs told Arabian Business.
“We also expect Stripe’s presence to propel forward the fintech sector as a whole-in terms of regulation and market adoption-which is quite exciting as there is so much potential to be unlocked locally.”
Muhammed Mekki, founding partner of AstroLabs
WeKeep’s CEO and founder Nadim Alameddine told Arabian Business that their business model is based on recurring billing, and Stripe’s billing product allowed them to get their model up and running quickly.
“What would have taken us three months to build instead took us one week with Stripe,” Alameddine said of WeKeep, a cloud accounting software.
He said that while it can become complex to build in-house solustions when selling subscription-based software, Stripe has found a way to streamline the process.
“Stripe’s onboarding process is smooth and frictionless – which means SMBs can start accepting online payments quickly. For us it’s an opportunity, because we’ll soon be integrating Stripe in our accounting platform so that our users can use their own Stripe account to invoice customers right from WeKeep. This will streamline their accounting and invoicing at the same time,” he said.
Fintech in the UAE
The UAE’s burgeoning fintech market is expected to be worth $2.5 billion by 2022, according to a 2019 report by Clifford Chance.
Stripe, whose software allows businesses to accept online payments, was started in 2010 and competes with PayPal, Aden and Square globally. The company has also launched banking services through partnerships with Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Barclays and Evolve Bank & Trust, US-news outlet CNBC reported.
The Silicon Valley giant received funding from Tesla CEO Elon Musk and German-American billionaire and entrepreneur Peter Thiel.
During the pandemic, the company has grown significantly as more consumers moved to online shopping. In 2020, the company launched in Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Malta. Stripe’s expansion into Africa was made via Nigeria technology start-up Paystack.
“We’re investing in the infrastructure that will power internet commerce in 2030 and beyond,” wrote chief financial officer Dhivya Suryadevara last April during a fundraising round.
Recently GoFundMe, Slack, and software-as-a-service giant Atlassian have struck deals with Stripe.
The company makes software that allows businesses to accept payments over the internet and operates in 44 countries, 31 of them in Europe.
Follow us on
