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Payments giant and private equity firm have teamed up to make an offer to buy troubled in a deal valued at more than $53 billion, Reuters Wednesday.

The purported deal, which has been rumored for months, is notable not just for its scale — it would be one of the largest acquisitions of a technology company in recent years — but also for its highly unusual nature. Privately held startups typically lack the cash, publicly traded shares and debt capacity to acquire their publicly listed brethren.

Of course, Stripe is not just any privately held company. The fintech startup was, until just a few short years ago, the highest valued startup based in the U.S., before being eclipsed on that metric by AI labs and . In February, the company announced it had inked deals with investors to provide liquidity to current and former employees through a tender offer at a $159 billion valuation, which still ranks it as the fourth most valuable startup in the world.

With substantial private capital — it has raised some $10.4 billion since inception, — Stripe has long been one of the most acquisitive venture-backed startups. It has made since its 2010 inception, according to ÂÜÀòÊÓƵ data. Only three have disclosed prices: stablecoin platform at $1.1 billion (2025), usage-based billing software startup at $1 billion (2026), and Nigerian payments startup at $200 million (2020).

Stripe’s M&A pace has also accelerated sharply since 2020, ÂÜÀòÊÓƵ data shows, with 13 of its 21 acquisitions announced since then.

Its recent strategy appears to be focused on stablecoins and crypto infrastructure — Bridge, , and — as well as on billing and money movement through Metronome, payment processing startup and .

If the plan to buy PayPal does go through, it will most certainly make Stripe an even more formidable player in the crowded payments space.

It would also rank as one of the largest acquisitions of a U.S. tech company, public or private, of the past five years, according to ÂÜÀòÊÓƵ data, trailing only a handful of larger deals including $61 billion purchase of in 2022 and ’s acquisition of AI coding platform Cursor and its parent, , for $60 billion last month.

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