Europe
2021.03.16 01:11 GMT+8

Stripe soars, China rebounds and Deliveroo sets out its IPO plan

Updated 2021.03.16 01:11 GMT+8
Daniel Harries

"While Stripe already processes hundreds of billions of dollars per year for millions of businesses worldwide, the opportunity ahead is much larger."

Dhivya Suryadevara, Stripe's chief financial officer, was looking to the future after the company became Silicon Valley's most valuable private company, pushing out Elon Musk's SpaceX

The digital payments giant's value soared to $95 billion after it capitalized on a boom in e-commerce in a recent round of funding. 

Founded in 2010 by Irish brothers Patrick and John Collison, when they were barely out of their teens, Stripe is used by more than 50 companies, each processing more than $1 billion annually to receive payments and bill customers.

The company said it would use the capital to invest in its European operations – which cover 31 of the 42 countries in which Stripe is active – and expand its global payments and treasury network.

Below we have more on how the company's value has soared over the past decade. 

Also in today's newsletter we have the latest on Bitcoin and China's economic recovery, plus a video on the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine and an interview about the world's semiconductor shortage. 

Read on for more of the day's business news in full.

Daniel Harries, 

Digital correspondent

P.S. Did someone forward this to you? Sign up here

China's economy surged dramatically in the first two months of the year, according to data just out. Industrial output grew 35.1 percent in January and February compared with the same months last year. 

Sales at Swedish fashion giant H&M fell slightly less than expected in the three months through February and rose in the first half of March as pandemic restrictions were eased in some markets, allowing hundreds of stores to reopen.

Deliveroo plans to sell around 1 billion pounds ($1.39 billion) of new shares in its upcoming initial public offering (IPO), as it begins marketing what is expected to be the biggest London listing in more than seven years.

Roche will buy GenMark Diagnostics, a U.S.-based maker of molecular diagnostic tests in a $1.8 billion deal.

The amount of Bitcoin ATMs are increasing across the U.S. as the cryptocurrency hits all-time highs. As of January, there were 28,185 bitcoin ATMs in the U.S., according to howmanybitcoinatms.com. Roughly 10,000 came within the preceding five months.

The governor of the Bank of England says he expects the UK economy to recover to its pre-COVID-19 level by the end of this year. Andrew Bailey has said he was looking at "new tools" to deal with the shock to the economy from the pandemic.

The price of Bitcoin rose to a new record high of more than $60,000 over the weekend. Analysts suggest the huge U.S. stimulus package approved by Washington last week will promote a surge of investment in cryptocurrencies.

French food giant Danone is replacing its CEO Emmanuel Faber after weeks of lobbying by activist shareholders. Faber has come under pressure for alleged underperformance. 

Elon Musk has many titles: Centibillionaire, Space entrepreneur, engineer and now the "Technoking of Tesla." The company made it one of his official titles in a formal regulatory filing that also named finance chief Zachary Kirkhorn "Master of Coin."

 

READ MORE

Can we trust Big Tech with our data?

UK won't return Parthenon marbles, says Johnson

Big dogs help save the little penguin

 

WATCH: The development of Russia's Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine was so quick due to the country's experience working on the Ebola outbreak, explains Aleksandar Ginzburg, the head of the Gamaleya Institute, Russia's primary epidemiology research facility.

 

Like many electronic products, the chip sector has been heavily affected over the past year but it's not just the pandemic that has caused issues.

Ben Wood, an analyst from CSS Insight, told CGTN Europe he believes collaborations, such as the one recently formed between the U.S. and China, will help boost the industry.

 

What is the situation now with the semiconductor supply chain? 

The chip shortage we're seeing at the moment is a kind of direct result of the extraordinary global events that have taken place that have upended the entire supply chain for electronics devices. And whether that's pandemic-related issues, geopolitical issues, or even if freak things like one of Samsung's factories in Austin, Texas, being shut down because of snowstorms. It's a bit of a perfect storm when it comes to semiconductor supply, which is why governments around the world are looking to see how they can secure supply for the future. 

 

It's not just about quantity, it's also about the quality, especially the fast-changing nature of all the tech that we use and that we drive with. So who and where has that leading edge?  

So there's a lot of expertise around the world, there's a lot of intellectual property that lies in the U.S., which has been very problematic because of some of the tensions between the U.S. and China. 

A lot of the manufacturing equipment lives there as well. But there's no question that people are trying to ramp up, Taiwan is a very key market for this and, obviously, the efforts that we heard about in the package with the Chinese government trying to promote companies that can drive solutions to address these shortages are coming through. 

But ... that could take as long as a decade to get to the really advanced process technologies. We're talking about tiny nanometer designs, which you need for the low power consumption required not only in the cars that we heard about but other places like mobile phones, which are also now struggling with demand. In fact, we're hearing that basically all big mobile phone makers now are starting to have trouble sourcing chips as well. And it's going to take a long time to unlock those supply constraints. 

 

The payments platform Stripe has become the most valuable private company in Silicon Valley after a new funding round valued the firm at $95 billion. Ireland's National Treasury Management Agency, Allianz bank, and the fund managers Fidelity and Baillie Gifford are among the investors that put forward $600m of new equity for the group.

Source(s): Reuters
Copyright © 

RELATED STORIES