Stripe, in partnership with private equity firm Advent International, has submitted a non-binding offer to acquire PayPal Holdings for approximately $53 billion. The bid of $60.50 per share represents a 28% premium over PayPal's previous closing price, causing the stock to surge about 16% in premarket trading.
The proposed deal is backed by around $50 billion in committed bank financing. Stripe and Advent would take equal ownership stakes and intend to operate PayPal as a unified company.
The offer comes after PayPal's market capitalization fell from a peak of roughly $360 billion in 2021 to about $42 billion. Stripe's valuation reached $159 billion as of February 2026.
PayPal appointed Enrique Lores as CEO in March 2026. He has been restructuring the company into distinct business units for checkout, Venmo, and payments/crypto.
Stripe primarily serves developers and online businesses with its payment APIs and backend processing. PayPal offers consumer-facing products, the Venmo peer-to-peer payment app, and a major checkout presence in e-commerce.
PayPal has been expanding its digital asset services, offering Bitcoin and Ethereum trading and launching its own stablecoin. Stripe re-enabled crypto payments in 2024.
The offer remains non-binding, and PayPal's board has not yet publicly responded.