Irish businesses have processed more than €20 billion in transactions through payments platform Stripe in the decade since its launch, as the internet economy has rapidly expanded.
Figures released by the company to coincide with its 10th anniversary show growth in the internet economy around the country, with more than half of the volume of payments owing from overseas.
The number of companies using Stripe in Ireland now number in the tens of thousands, including established organisations such as the GAA, Irish Life, and Smyths Toys Superstores alongside tech companies such as Glofox and Wayflyer.
That has grown from a few hundred businesses in 2013, and is increasing at a rate of hundreds of businesses a week, Stripe said.
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“Thinking back to when we launched Stripe, Ireland’s tech scene is like night and day. Tech founders would find it impossibly difficult to raise money and compete for talent, and small businesses simply didn’t have the tools to operate online,” said John Collison, cofounder of Stripe.
“Nowadays, Ireland produces software companies at industrial scale, and the internet economy is everywhere. With new talent coming through courses like the University of Limerick’s Immersive Software Engineering and accelerators like NDRC, I’m excited to see what Irish founders build next.”
Dublin has more Stripe users than anywhere else in the country but outside the capital, the payment have risen faster, with Cork topping the list at 36.6 times growth, Carlow in second at almost 19 times growth, and Galway at 16.2 times growth.
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Over the past five years, median-sized businesses in Wexford, Cavan, and Tipperary counties have tripled the amount of money they collect on Stripe.
The new platforms and tools available to businesses have also opened up new avenues for trade overseas, allowing companies to meet tax and legal obligations, and accept local payments, with almost 56 per cent of the payment volume that Stripe’s Irish clients have processed coming from outside their home markets.
That was heavily weighted in favour of software and digital native firms, where 80 per cent of payment volume last year was from overseas.
But small businesses saw €500 million in revenue from international customers in 2022, with early stage start-ups getting more than half of their payments volume from outside Ireland. The highest ratio of cross-Border payments was in Dublin, at 68 per cent, followed by Cork at 56 per cent and Galway at 53 per cent.
The platform also reported more diverse export markets, with non-Irish sales for companies using Stripe coming from the US, the UK, France and Spain.
The data also showed some of the fastest growing export markets were France, which grew 78 per cent, Sweden and Canada at 50 per cent, and Japan at 43 per cent.
The company, which was founded by Irish brothers Patrick and John Collison, said the coming decade remained “promising” for the internet economy. The company processed more than $817 billion (€765 billion) in payments globally in 2022, but growth slowed, as Stripe had forecast.
At its peak, the fintech was valued at $95 billion; in March it raised $6.5 billion in a funding round that valued it at $50 billion, to cover costs related to vesting restricted stock units the company handed out to attract and retain staff.
