If you were hoping to buy and sell shares in tech company Stripe, then you will face disappointment today as CEO Patrick Collison has completely ruled out taking the firm public anytime soon.

Going Public might not be that great, says Collison

He is bucking the trend of other tech companies who have been rushing to go public recently, including MuleSoft and Snap. However, Collison was speaking at a conference and said he was concerned that many tech firms faced great difficulties when first going public.

Stripe has been running for around seven years and made its success by offering an online and mobile payment platform to businesses and individuals. It has been valued previously at over $9 billion.

But its founder believes that making an IPO at this time could cause problems for the company such as reducing opportunities to move forward at the present rate and to take the kind of risks he had in the past.

A new service from the Tech Company to help Start-ups

Apart from the payment platform, Stripe has also recently launched a new toolkit to help startup businesses get going. This reason is another one the CEO gave for not wanting to go public.

Stripe Atlas is the name of the new toolkit which aims to help new startups and entrepreneurs to get their online businesses up and running within days. It pulls together all of the legal, admin and other information in one place to help make life easier. Around 62 per cent of those using this system are not first-time starters of companies, which shows just how much the entrepreneurs welcome this service.

But supporting startups is another reason the CEO has given for not taking Stripe public at this stage. He explained that he feels Stripe is very early on down its business path, and now it has this extra service helping other startups. As the clients are starting their business paths, there is a real affinity between the companies.

Won’t follow Biggies like Amazon

He explained that going public would only be an option if the business reached a plateau in its growth trajectory. But that time has not been reached yet.

People have been comparing the success of Stripe, with that of Amazon, which became a public company after just three years. However, Collison always quotes that while it is hugely successful now, Amazon had to get through a few years of the struggle initially and he is not ready for that with Stripe.

Going strong since the start

He certainly has had no problem attracting investors to Stripe after raising around $150 million last year, with General Catalyst Partners and CapitalG, which altogether doubled the value of Stripe compared with 2015.

The online payment company is believed to have around 300 employees currently and is on track to grow further in 2018 with the successful launch of Atlas. But anyone wishing to jump on the bandwagon and make money with shares in this tech company could be in for a long wait. With Stripe, it’s a case of watching this space carefully over the next few years.

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