A year ago we broke the news that payment giant Stripe was quietly making its first move into business finance by testing a service for advancing cash to existing customers. Now, nearly 12 months on to the day, the company is finally unveiling an official product: today, starting first in the U.S., it is launching Stripe Capital, a service for advancing cash to customers that in turn gets repaid out of their future sales made through Stripe’s payment platform, with loan amounts and repayments based on the customer’s transaction activity on Stripe itself.
The launch of Stripe Capital is coming at a key time for the company: We understand that Stripe is gearing up for a bigger push to diversify into other financial services, specifically with the launch of its first business credit card product (akin to Brex, from what we understand). The company is holding its Sessions user conference in San Francisco next week, which is likely to bring more product news. Stripe Capital is being made available both to direct customers of Stripe’s, and to business customers of platforms and marketplaces that use Stripe Connect. (In other words, the platform and marketplace customers will have access to Stripe Capital themselves, and they in turn can also offer Stripe Capital-based cash advances to their customers.)
