Online payment alternative Stripe has made its way to Canada.
The Stripe service, which contains a controlable secure payment use a store and forward method, is now available to Canadian entrepreneurs and businesses.
Stripe co-founder, John Collison said Stripe removes one of the biggest hurdles to starting an online business in Canada. For the first time, any business in Canada will easily be able to accept credit card payments without compromising on their customers’ experience. We’re excited to see what Canadians will create using our service.
Collison along with his brother Patrick, two former MIT and Harvard students, created Stripe with a goal to make it easy for large businesses, startups, entrepreneurs, non-profits, and everything in between to accept payments from anywhere in the world. Since launching in September 2011, Stripe has secured $38 million in funding from investors such as Sequoia Capital, General Catalyst, Redpoint Ventures, and Andreessen Horowitz. Paypal founder Peter Thiel had increased his investment in Stripe by $5 million.“Stripe came about because we were so dissatisfied with how hard it was to accept payments online and build a business on the Internet,” said Patrick Collison, Stripe’s co-founder and CEO. “Lengthy waits, onerous requirements, and antiquated technology have been holding back the Internet economy. Stripe makes it simple for any company to sell to anyone, anywhere in the world.”
Canadian companies such as Tarsnap, MetaLab, and Shopify, have all been testing the Stripe service.
Tobias Lutke, CEO of Shopify, an Ottawa-based company said the first time he dealt with online payments was when Shopify opened an online snowboard store. Lutke’s only option was to go through his bank. It took months of pleading and convincing, according to him and by the time the business could accept payments, they had spent thousands of dollars for unnecessary security audits and were stuck sitting on unsold inventory.
Lutke said he likes Stripe and that companies of all sizes should have all the tools they need to run a successful business. “We got hooked on offering Stripe’s services to our customers because they understand how simple it can be – and should be – for businesses to grow and transact online. For Canadians, this means more choice for purchasing a variety of products and services from businesses which are now able to operate online.”
Andrew Wilkinson, founder of Victoria, B.C.-based design studio MetaLab said after using Stripe’s beta: “Credit card processing in Canada is still in the dark ages. Getting setup with our old payment gateway took months of frustrating applications and phone calls, and came with a barrage of fees and startup costs. Stripe has been a breath of fresh air. It took us less than a minute to get set up and start accepting payments. The old guard should be quaking in their boots.”
Finally, Colin Percival, founder of Tarsnap, believes Stripe makes all the problems of credit card processing go away as it took him only a few minutes to sign up and integrate into the Web site.
“Unlike Paypal, they trust me to decide if I want to accept a payment and, most importantly, when I need help, I can send an email and get a reply from them in a matter of minutes. I can’t imagine why a small business starting up now and needing to accept credit cards online would want to use anything other than Stripe.”