Stripe and Advent Make $53 Billion Offer for PayPal
Jul 15, 2026The proposed deal would combine two major payment platforms with nearly $3.7 trillion in reported 2025 payment volume and wide reach across recurring billing, digital wallets, fraud, and enterprise payments.
Stripe and private equity firm Advent International have made a joint offer to acquire PayPal Holdings for $60.50 per share, according to Reuters.
The offer values PayPal at more than $53 billion, about 28% above the company’s closing share price on Tuesday. Roughly $50 billion in bank financing has been committed to support the bid.
Stripe and Advent would each own half of PayPal if the acquisition goes through. They have not proposed breaking the company apart.
The offer was submitted earlier this month after an initial approach in April. PayPal had not responded when Reuters published its report. PayPal, Stripe, and Advent declined to comment. The proposal may not lead to a deal.
A Potential Combination Measured in Trillions
The size of the two platforms makes the offer especially significant.
Businesses running on Stripe generated $1.9 trillion in total volume during 2025, up 34% from the previous year. Stripe says more than five million businesses use its technology, either directly or through other platforms. Its customers include 90% of the companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and 80% of the Nasdaq 100.
PayPal processed $1.79 trillion in payment volume during 2025 across 25.4 billion transactions. The company ended the year with 439 million active consumer and merchant accounts in about 200 markets.
Together, Stripe and PayPal reported nearly $3.7 trillion in 2025 payment volume. Combined with Stripe’s reach across major enterprises and PayPal’s global account base, the figures show the scale of the business Stripe and Advent are seeking to assemble.
The Recurring Revenue Infrastructure Behind the Deal
Stripe and PayPal are both built into the systems subscription companies use to collect and manage recurring revenue.
Stripe has expanded well beyond payment processing. Stripe Billing supports subscriptions, usage-based pricing, invoicing, metering, automated payment collection, and failed-payment recovery.
Its wider revenue product line includes tax calculation, revenue recognition, and reporting. Stripe expects that business to reach a $1 billion annual revenue run rate in 2026.
PayPal brings a different but overlapping group of products.
Its business includes the PayPal and Venmo wallets, branded checkout, enterprise payment processing through Braintree, global payouts through Hyperwallet, fraud tools, and technology that routes payments across methods and providers.
Braintree gives PayPal a major position in enterprise payment processing, including recurring transactions and access to cards, PayPal, Venmo, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and other payment methods.
A combined company would have a presence across much of the recurring revenue chain, including subscriber checkout, payment processing, billing, invoicing, payment retries, fraud management, wallets, payouts, tax, and revenue reporting.
No plans have been announced for how Stripe would organize or connect those products.
Braintree Could Be Central to the Deal
Braintree may be one of PayPal’s most important assets for large subscription businesses.
Stripe increasingly competes for the same enterprise merchant relationships. PayPal reported that Braintree payment volume and revenue returned to growth during the second half of 2025 after the company shifted its focus toward more profitable merchant business.
Common ownership would raise questions about Braintree’s future. It could remain a separate platform, become more closely connected to Stripe, or be positioned for a different part of the market.
Those choices could affect product plans, integrations, pricing, and competition for enterprise merchants. At this stage, there is no public information about what Stripe intends to do with Braintree or any other PayPal product.
Competition and Provider Choice
A completed acquisition would remove PayPal as an independent competitor to Stripe and bring Braintree under common ownership.
The payments market would still include major processors, banks, billing platforms, digital wallets, and specialized providers. Even so, the combined company would have considerable reach across business payments, consumer wallets, enterprise processing, and recurring revenue technology.
Regulators would need to decide where Stripe and PayPal compete most directly.
That review could include enterprise online payments, branded wallets, merchant services, subscription billing, and payment routing. Each segment presents a different view of the companies’ overlap and competitive reach.
For subscription operators, the central question is how much of the infrastructure behind enrollment, billing, payment acceptance, recovery, and revenue management could eventually sit within one company.
The Next Move Belongs to PayPal
PayPal must decide whether to engage with the offer.
The company could reject the proposal, begin negotiations, seek a higher price, or attract interest from another buyer. Any agreement would still require financing, shareholder approval, and regulatory review.
The next major developments will be PayPal’s response, any change to the price or structure of the offer, and what Stripe says about Braintree, PayPal, Venmo, and the companies’ overlapping merchant products.
Insider Take
A Stripe acquisition of PayPal would bring two major payment platforms under one owner, along with Braintree, PayPal, Venmo, and significant recurring-payment infrastructure.
Together, the companies reported nearly $3.7 trillion in 2025 payment volume. That scale raises questions about competition, provider choice, and how much of the recurring revenue stack could eventually sit within one company.
No deal has been reached, and no product plans have been announced.
Sources
Reuters: Stripe and Advent offer to buy PayPal for more than $53 billion