TL;DR
- Stripe and Advent International offered to acquire PayPal for $53 billion, at a 28% premium over the latest closing price.
- The offer proposes $60.50 per share and includes approximately $50 billion in committed financing.
- This is Stripe’s second acquisition attempt on PayPal; in February, it had already held preliminary talks with the company.
Stripe and private equity firm Advent International submitted a joint offer to acquire PayPal Holdings for $53 billion, according to Reuters, citing sources familiar with the matter.
The proposal values PayPal at $60.50 per share, representing a 28% premium over the latest closing market price, and includes approximately $50 billion in committed financing. Neither of the two companies involved made any comment on the matter.
The Market Approves
This is not the first time Stripe has attempted to move on PayPal. According to a Bloomberg report published in February, the payments processing company had already held preliminary acquisition talks. PayPal faces growing competition in mobile payment services from Google Pay and Apple Pay.
The market reacted quickly: PayPal shares rose 11.3% to $52.73 in Wednesday’s pre-market session, according to Yahoo Finance data. Over the past month, the stock has gained 14%, though it still shows a 35% decline for the year.
Stripe and PayPal Deepen Their Stablecoin Strategy
Beyond the corporate transaction, both companies have deepened their bets on the digital asset ecosystem over the past few years. PayPal launched its stablecoin PYUSD in 2023, which reached a market capitalization of $4.2 billion in February 2026 before retreating to approximately $2.85 billion, according to CoinMarketCap. The token ranks among the ten largest stablecoins, though at a considerable distance from Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC.
Stripe, for its part, has offered stablecoin-based accounts globally since May 2025. Its stablecoin infrastructure platform, Bridge, received conditional approval to operate as a national trust bank under the supervision of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency of the United States on February 17. In March, Visa announced it will expand its stablecoin card partnership with Bridge —a Stripe subsidiary— to more than 100 countries across Europe, Asia-Pacific, Africa, and the Middle East before the end of the year.
