The world's most valuable startups: What are they, and where are they?

3/16/21 8:00PM

This week Stripe, the digital payments company, raised $600m at a $95bn valuation. That officially makes Stripe Silicon Valley's most valuable startup, and puts it second only to Bytedance — the Chinese parent company of TikTok — in the competition for the world's most valuable.

Stripe's revaluation this week also underlines just how dominant the US remains in the venture and startup landscape — 51 of the 100 most valuable startups globally are American. 22 are Chinese, 9 are British, 7 are Indian and the rest are spread out thinly between a handful of countries.

‍Happy St. Paddy's Day

‍For the Irish Collison brothers, who founded Stripe when they were just 19 and 21, the fresh financing will help Stripe to expand into Europe from its base in Ireland, where one of its two headquarters is located (the other is in San Francisco).

John, the younger of the 2 brothers, recently noted that "Stripe itself is now bigger [by payment volumes] than the entire ecommerce market was when we started working on Stripe". So happy St. Patrick's Day John & Patrick Collison — thanks for making everyone feel bad about what we were doing when we were 19-21.

The full list of the most valuable startups can be found at CB Insights.

Hyunsoo Rim

appy birthday

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JetBlue is raising its bag fees as fuel costs squeeze airlines

JetBlue will reportedly hike its bag fees, as the cost of jet fuel continues to climb amid the war in Iran. It’s the latest example of carriers finding ways to push rising costs onto travelers.

Last week, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said that if fuel prices remain elevated, fares would need to rise another 20% for his airline to break even this year.

As CNBC reported, when one airline raises fees, others tend to follow.

Earlier this month, JetBlue hiked its first-quarter outlook for operating revenue per seat mile to between 5% and 7%, saying that strong Q1 demand helped “partially offset additional expenses realized from operational disruptions and rising fuel costs.” Now, the carrier appears to be making moves to further boost revenue to offset those costs.

Earlier on Monday, JetBlue rival Alaska Air lowered its Q1 profit forecast. The refining margins for the carrier’s cheapest fuel option — sourced from Singapore and representing about 20% of Alaska’s overall supply — have spiked 400% since February.

JetBlue did not immediately respond to a request for comment.