Payments company Stripe and private equity firm Advent International have jointly offered to acquire PayPal for $60.50 per share, valuing the company at more than $53 billion, according to Reuters.
The offer, submitted earlier this month, represents a 28% premium to PayPal’s closing share price on Tuesday and is backed by approximately $50 billion in committed financing from banks. Under the proposed structure, Stripe and Advent would each hold an equal stake in PayPal rather than breaking the company apart. PayPal, Stripe, and Advent have all declined to comment.
The proposal follows an initial approach made in early April. Stripe and Advent have not yet received a formal response from PayPal and are seeking to advance discussions in the coming weeks. There is no certainty the approach will result in a completed transaction.
If the deal goes through, it would rank among the largest acquisitions in financial technology history, and would combine two of the world’s most recognised names in digital payments under one roof.
Advent International is a Boston-based global private equity firm that has been investing since 1984 across more than 40 countries. The firm focuses on buyouts and growth investments in sectors including financial services, technology, and healthcare. It is not new to payments either; Advent is also a backer of Nuvei, the Canadian payments firm that recently acquired Payoneer Global for $2.75 billion.
What this deal would mean for PayPal and why Stripe wants it
Now, here is where things get interesting. PayPal was once the undisputed king of online payments. Founded in 1998, it dominated the early internet era and hit a market capitalisation of around $360 billion in 2021, a number that felt almost untouchable at the time. Then things started to go wrong.
Competition crept in from every direction. Apple Pay, Google Pay, and a wave of newer fintech companies started chipping away at PayPal’s market share. Growth slowed. Investors lost confidence. By earlier this year, PayPal’s market cap had fallen to as low as roughly $36 billion, a drop of more than 90% from its peak. In the past 12 months alone, it has lost more than 40% of its value.
New CEO Enrique Lores, who took over in March, has been trying to turn things around. In April, he split PayPal’s operations into three units covering checkout, consumer financial services, including Venmo, and payments and crypto. He has outlined plans to use artificial intelligence to cut duplication and save around $1.5 billion over two to three years, with those savings being reinvested into growth.
The revenue numbers are actually not bad. PayPal posted $8.35 billion in revenue in the first quarter, beating analyst expectations, with total payment volumes jumping 8% to about $464 billion.
So why would Stripe want to buy a company that has been struggling? Because at $53 billion, PayPal is significantly cheaper than it used to be, and what it brings to the table is still enormous. PayPal has hundreds of millions of active users, deep relationships with merchants globally, and infrastructure that would take years and billions of dollars to build from scratch.
For Stripe, which was valued at $159 billion in a February tender offer, absorbing PayPal would be a way to dramatically accelerate its reach into consumer payments, a space Stripe has historically been less dominant in compared to business payments.
Think of it this way. Stripe is very good at helping businesses accept payments. PayPal is very good at helping consumers pay. Put them together and you have something that covers almost the entire payments journey. That is the logic behind this deal, if it goes through.
The broader payments sector is also in a merger wave right now. In 2025, Global Payments agreed to acquire Worldpay from FIS in a $24.25 billion deal. Mastercard is reportedly exploring the sale of a majority stake in its UK payments subsidiary Vocalink. Everyone is looking for scale, and quickly.
Whether PayPal says yes to Stripe and Advent is the next big question. But the fact that this offer is on the table and backed by $50 billion in bank financing tells you that the people making it are serious.
Read also: PayPal expands PYUSD stablecoin to 70 markets, including Africa
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