Stripe Completes US$1.1bn Bridge Acquisition

Stripe has completed its US$1.1bn acquisition of Bridge Network, a deal first announced in October 2024 that marks the payments company's largest purchase to date.

The completion, announced on 4 February, follows a Treasury roundtable at Stripe's headquarters that initially brought Bridge Co-founder Zach Abrams and Stripe's Patrick Collison together.

“It was shocking to me,” says Zach. “We spent 90-plus percent of the meeting talking about stablecoins — even though we were the only stablecoin company in the room.”

Bridge had been courting Stripe as a potential customer before the acquisition discussions began. The company has experienced rapid growth, with Abrams noting that business increased tenfold in 2024.

Market momentum

Bridge, founded in 2022, enables businesses to accept stablecoin payments — cryptocurrencies pegged to traditional currencies like the US dollar — without handling digital tokens. 

Its clients include cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, aerospace manufacturer SpaceX, and several government entities.

The US$1.1bn price marked a threefold increase from Bridge's valuation in August 2024. 

The company's 60 employees have now joined Stripe's San Francisco headquarters, participating in a boot camp programme that runs every two weeks.

Cryptocurrency evolution

Stripe's journey in digital assets began in 2014 when it became one of the first major fintech firms to support bitcoin payments. 

That early venture ended in 2018 when scalability issues and high fees prompted the company to withdraw from cryptocurrency services, though it maintained its optimism about the sector's potential.

The digital assets landscape has since transformed. PayPal's launch of its USD stablecoin in 2023 marked a turning point for mainstream adoption, followed by Robinhood's US$200m acquisition of cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp in June 2024. 

Major financial institutions have followed suit, with Visa and SWIFT now offering native stablecoin support.

Cross-border innovation

This shift in the market aligns with growing demand for alternative payment rails. 

Standard Chartered projects stablecoin usage in foreign exchange flows could reach 10% from today's 1%, driven by the need for more efficient cross-border transactions.

Bridge has positioned itself at the centre of this transformation. From its initial focus on payment solutions, the company has expanded into government aid disbursement across Latin America and developed virtual accounts that enable fintech companies to offer global USD services.

Through Remote.com, Stripe now facilitates payments across more than 70 countries. Neetika Bansal, Business Lead at Stripe, points to US-to-Philippines contractor payments as an example of evolving workforce needs.

“We are working very closely together to figure out the right opportunities, where we should power our products with Bridge and, in fact, where we should do new product development on Bridge infrastructure,” says Neetika.

Strategic integration

As integration planning proceeds, Bridge continues to operate its existing services. 

The company processes millions of daily transfers, with international volume growing at 50% annually - a marked improvement over traditional financial networks that face higher costs and complexity.

“A lot of our conversations are about absorbing what Bridge has learned about stablecoins,” says Neetika, who describes the acquisition as "almost a no-brainer" given Bridge's solutions for worldwide commerce.

Bridge's October announcement outlined this vision: “Stablecoins represent an entirely new payments platform. 

“Realising the potential of this platform will be a decades-long journey. We need money that can move across borders; be freely accessible to anyone, in any country; and can be sent at almost no cost.”

The deal's completion on 4 February followed regulatory approval, marking a significant step in Stripe's expansion into digital assets.

It comes after Stripe expanded its global payments integration with Klarna in January this year. 

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