Stripe: Platform of Platforms

Stripe Treasury, as its website notes, is banking-as-a-service, but, critically, Stripe is not a bank

Financial services simply weren’t designed for the modern internet, and this is a pain point for businesses today: nearly half (46%) of companies report that their banking experience has hindered their company growth.

Now with Treasury, someone starting up a new Internet business can simply start selling goods, services, or yes, subscriptions, and have their banking needs met by the same software which is powering their business.

This is a textbook example of the power of platforms; consider an operating system like Windows: any number of applications can run on any number of computers thanks to there being an abstraction layer in the middle:

Capital for platforms is not for Stripe’s customers, but rather the customer of Stripe’s customers, which is to say, Stripe is asserting itself as the platform of platforms