With an eye toward accelerating international expansion, online payments company Stripe has closed an $80 million round of financing that gives the startup a valuation of $1.75 billion.
The new round of financing, which included investment from venture-capital investors Khosla Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Founders Fund, brings the company's total funding to more than $130 million.
The 4-year-old payment processor plans to use the funding to beef up its infrastructure and expansion into overseas markets. The company launched into 10 markets during 2013, and announced Wednesday the addition of Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Spain as beta countries.
Stripe aims to challenge established powerhouses like PayPal and newcomers like WePay in the online payments space. The company emphasizes its ability to get almost anyone with a Web site up and running with credit-card payments almost immediately, without a merchant account, and with a simple fee structure -- 2.9 percent plus 30 cents on all transactions.
The San Francisco startup was recently said to be near a partnership with Twitter to make it possible for retailers to accept credit cards directly through tweets.