U.S. payment scale-up Stripe establishes new Mexico City headquarters

Contxto – As if competition within the Latin American fintech industries wasn’t thick enough already, now the U.S.-based payment giant, Stripe, has landed on Mexican shores.

While we previously covered this development in early August following its blog announcement, the San Francisco-based company’s new Mexico City headquarters is now officially up and running.

With Uber and Rappi among its 1 million clients, the company expects to hire and recruit talented individuals to launch, grow and consolidate the brand’s payment systems software. Moving forward, Stripe also anticipates to heighten its presence not only in Mexico but Latin America as a whole.

This will be Stripe’s first regional office where teams developing products will gather. Seeing that Latin America’s e-commerce market is expected to increase by 35 percent this year, the Mexico City space will be a strategic location to collaborate with tech companies from across the region.

Budding eCommerce market

For those of you who don’t know, Stripe is an economic infrastructure platform for partnering businesses to run operations more efficiently, mainly within the payments vertical. Standardizing online payment processes for e-merchants, it’s understandable why Stripe decided to launch to Latin America.

“We will make life simple, whatever the payment systems are required,” said John Collison, co-founder of Stripe, to press officials in Mexico City. “You can just go back to building your business.”

In many ways, Latin America’s fast-growing fintech industries and penetrating tech products made this strategic move possible. After all, some of the largest e-commerce markets exist in the region. Soon enough, there will also be more than 500 million internet users, meaning lots of potential.

Just in 2016 alone, around 126 million users reportedly purchased items online. This number could grow by 23 percent to 155 million users by the end of the year, according to a Stripe statement. 

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The company is also no stranger to working with Latin American partners. Previously, it has collaborated with Platzi, Rappi, Cornershop, Urbvan and Parafuzo, but it was just warming up. Meaning, Stripe is looking to go even further. 

Make no mistake, its Mexican headquarters is no commercial office. Rather, it will host everyone from growth strategists to software engineers.

Stripe’s initial goal is to expand and tropicalize its payment network as well as the regional treasury. Moreover, the company wants to create and launch new products specifically tailored to regional needs. 

While Stripe’s financial solutions excite many people, others are also looking forward to seeing what the company will accomplish in the region.

Stripe Atlas, for instance, helps founders get their companies rolling from a legal standpoint. By removing bureaucracy and complexities in launching a business, more people can jump in and become entrepreneurs. The difference is less hassle.

With Mexico’s strong engineering talent, many techies and entrepreneurs will have new opportunities going forward. The trust Stripe puts in local talent is very important for the national tech industry. Excellence and world-class performance will be expected from these tech professionals.

Now, it seems like Mexico is not Stripe’s last frontier, but Brazil is also on its radar.

Lastly, Stripe invites people who want to help it enlarge its digital footprint in Latin America to reach out. If hiring qualified engineers didn’t seem difficult enough already, brace yourselves.

Not much remains to say, but rest assured that I’ll keep you up to date.

-VC