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Based in : US Company : Stripe Market cap : US $ 95bn

Patrick Collison , the CEO and Co-founder of Stripe , set up the company in 2010 with his brother John . But their first business venture together is a world away from this Silicon Valley payments unicorn . Born in rural Ireland , the brothers set up an auction software company called Auctomatic and sell it for US $ 5mn in 2008 . They use the money to fund university degrees , John going to Harvard and older brother Patrick studying mathematics at MIT .

With time to reflect on how difficult it is to set up an online business , the Collisons set out to simplify the process of accepting payments online . They start Stripe before they can finish their studies and it proves successful enough to compel them to drop out . Today , Stripe processes US $ 600bn in payments every year and is one of the world ’ s most valuable privately held companies . Patrick Collison continues to lead the company , the most successful founder-CEO of any fintech . fintechmagazine . com 151