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"Stripe, the fast-growing Web payment enabler from the US, has finally launched its service in Europe, starting with the UK today.\r\n\r\nFounder Patrick Collison announced the launch of a beta service in the UK at the London Web Summit in an interview with TNW's Martin Bryant, and the news follows a false start last month when the startup sent out UK beta invites by mistake.\r\n\r\nThe company allows website owners and developers to begin accepting payments online with little more than the addition of a few lines of code. That has helped it raise nearly $40 million in funding to date, at an\u00A0estimated $500 million\u00A0valuation, and it is now hiring in the UK.\r\n\r\nThe company now has an office in London, Collison said, and the company is recruiting people for the UK but also for positions across Europe (Berlin and Paris according to some job openings).\r\n\r\nDevelopers simply sign up for a free account and input the code displayed on its website. Stripe handles the full stack of payments -- from storing cards, to subscriptions, and direct payouts -- and it charges a flat 2.9 percent rate and $0.30 on each transaction.\r\n\r\nFrom the official statement:\r\nThe Stripe UK production beta starts today and we will be adding more countries over the coming days.\r\n\r\nStripe's UK launch will provide the same batteries-included stack that we offer in the US: full API for web and mobile payments, recurring billing support, stored payment credentials, instant activation, and easy PCI compliance.\r\n\r\nThousands of UK companies have signed up to the waiting list for Stripe's launch.\r\n\r\nStripe's UK beta will enable GBP and USD payments on Visa and MasterCard cards. EUR coming soon.\r\nStripe was founded by brothers Patrick and John Collison when they were on vacation in South America. The company completed its first international expansion when it launched in Canada\u00A0in September 2012, in what the Collison brothers promised would be the first of many rollouts.\r\n\r\n\u201CWe\u2019re already working on the next set of countries. Watch this space for updates,\u201D an announcement at the time read.\r\n\r\nStripe's move into Europe brings it into competition with a rapidly growing rival,\u00A0Paymill. The Rocket Internet-backed company\u00A0raised $13 million\u00A0in January, and added a further $5 million from US investor Blumberg Capital last month.\r\n\r\nSpeaking to TNW about its latest seed investment,\u00A0Paymill co-founder and CEO Mark Henkel said that he didn't regard Stripe as a competition. Instead he believes that the US firm is &amp;quot;a friend&amp;quot; that will help developers and others realize the alternatives to existing Web payment solutions, principally PayPal.\r\n\r\n\u201CI\u2019m really ready and happy, we\u2019re both dedicated to solving pain points in payments. This is a huge problem, there are so many issues that there\u2019s space for ten competitors&amp;quot; in Europe, Henkel said.\r\n\r\nPaymill first launched in Germany\u00A0back in August of last year but today it is live in 32 markets across Europe. That\u2019s largely due to a\u00A0massive expansion in November\u00A0which saw it quietly launch in no fewer than 29 new countries over a weekend.\r\n\r\nLast year was a busy one for Stripe and it raised its\u00A0$18 million Series A round\u00A0in February, before bringing in\u00A0another $20 million\u00A0when its Series B closed in July. Its backers include\u00A0Sequoia Capital and Redpoint Ventures, and angel investors Peter Thiel,\u00A0Chris Dixon and Box co-founder Aaron Levie.\r\n\r\nCollison also said on stage that it is working with Walmart Labs in the United States, and that Foursquare and Boxee are customers.\r\n\r\nRelated:\u00A0Stripe launches Checkout with overlay payment form and mobile support optimized for Android and iOS\r\n\r\nHeadline image via\u00A0401kcalculator"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/uk/2013/03/01/stripe-uk-europe-launch/>