Payments giant Stripe has acquired Lemon Squeezy, a four-year-old competitor, according to an announcement made by Lemon Squeezy on Friday. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Expanding Merchant of Record Services
Lemon Squeezy, a merchant of record, calculates and pays global sales tax for digital products, handling legal processing and fees across various countries. It primarily caters to SaaS and software businesses. Stripe CEO Patrick Collison welcomed the acquisition in a post on X, saying, “Welcome @lmsqueezy! We’re going to scale merchant of record selling in a big way.” Chief Product Officer Will Gaybrick added, “When asked ‘what should Stripe ship next?’ many of you’ve said merchant of record. The Lemon Squeezy team has built an excellent MoR product, and we’re excited to work together with them to help more of you launch to grow!”
Lemon Squeezy co-founder and CEO JR Farr shared in a blog post that since the company’s public launch in 2021, they received “many acquisition offers and (Series A) term sheets from investors,” including turning down a $50 million Series A term sheet. Farr highlighted the importance of finding the right partner, stating, “We’re proud to say that we’ve found that partner in Stripe and have gone from idea to acquisition in under three years.”
While specific revenue figures were not disclosed, Farr mentioned that Lemon Squeezy surpassed $1 million in annual recurring revenue nine months after its public launch in 2021. Additionally, Lemon Squeezy has been processing payments on Stripe since its inception.
This acquisition marks Stripe’s second of the year, following an “acqui-hire” of the four-person team from Supaglue in March. Supaglue, previously known as Supergrain, was an open-source developer platform for user-facing integrations. Last summer, Stripe also acquired Okay, a startup focused on low-code analytics software for engineering teams.
