Sequoia’s Bridge Stake Paid More Than $100 Million After Stripe

Sequoia Capital’s close to 16% stake in Bridge is worth more than $100 million after Stripe completed its $1.1 billion purchase of the stablecoin platform. The venture firm put $19 million into Bridge’s Series A in 2024, and Stripe closed the deal on February 4, 2025.

What that check bought is now a Stripe-owned trust-bank application, a European license stack, and a founder who has left to run an open dollar with Stripe as one of five partners.

Sequoia’s $19 Million Check Bought 16% of Bridge

People familiar with the sale said Sequoia owned close to 16% of Bridge and that the stake was worth more than $100 million. Sequoia partner Shaun Maguire led the Series A, put in $19 million, and took a board seat. Sequoia declined to comment at the time.

The Series A itself was a $40 million round in August 2024, at a $200 million valuation. PitchBook put total funding before the sale at $58 million. Stripe’s $1.1 billion price was 5.5 times that Series A valuation. Bridge was less than three years old when Stripe agreed to buy it.

Maguire’s check did not sit for a full venture cycle. Stripe finalized its $1.1 billion bid on October 20, 2024, weeks after the August round. People familiar with the matter said the package mixed cash and stock. Bridge had a $14 million run rate around the agreement, and the sale still cleared at $1.1 billion.

THE SEQUOIA BRIDGE CHECK

• The check: Sequoia invested $19 million in the Series A.
• The stake: People familiar said Sequoia held close to 16% of Bridge.
• The outcome: That stake was worth more than $100 million at the $1.1 billion price.
• The round: The Series A was $40 million in August 2024 at a $200 million valuation.

Crypto venture funding had been thin since 2022, which is why a sub-year turnaround stood out. The deeper point is what the buyer did with the asset after the cap table got paid.

Stripe Closed the Deal on February 4, 2025

Stripe said it completed its acquisition of Bridge on February 4, 2025, about three and a half months after the October 20 agreement. The newsroom note ran from San Francisco and Dublin, Stripe’s dual headquarters. It did not restate the $1.1 billion figure, which had already been attached to the October bid.

Zach Abrams, who co-founded Bridge in 2022 with Sean Yu, marked the close on X. Both men had worked at Coinbase; Abrams had also run product at Square and later at Brex.

We closed our acquisition with Stripe! Together we’re scaling digital dollars to businesses everywhere.

Zach Abrams, cofounder of Bridge, Stripe newsroom, February 4, 2025

Neetika Bansal, then a business lead at Stripe, wrote on LinkedIn that users were already feeling the impact of stablecoin rails and that the firm saw a role for them in cross-border commerce. The close turned a two-year-old API shop into a unit inside a company that processes payments for millions of businesses.

What Stripe Got for $1.1 Billion

Stripe did not buy a token listing. It bought orchestration: software that lets a company move dollars between bank rails and stablecoins, issue branded coins, and hold balances without standing up its own chain stack. Bridge Building Inc., named in the later OCC file as a Stripe subsidiary, issues a dollar token called USDB and white-label versions tagged xUSD.

In its 2025 annual letter, published February 24, 2026, Stripe said stablecoin payments volume doubled to around $400 billion that year, with about 60% of that flow estimated as business-to-business. Bitcoin’s price fell hard in 2025. Bridge’s own volume, Stripe wrote, more than quadrupled. The letter also said Stripe acquired Privy in July 2025, a wallet firm it put at more than 110 million programmable wallets, and unveiled Tempo in September 2025 with Paradigm as a payments-focused chain.

THE STACK STRIPE BUILT AFTER BRIDGE

Stripe’s 2025 letter put total volume through businesses on Stripe at $1.9 trillion, up 34% from 2024, and described a tender offer at a $159 billion valuation. Bridge is a thin slice of that machine. It is also the slice that lets Stripe treat a digital dollar as another settlement method, not a side product.

Bridge National Trust Bank Is Still in Organization

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted preliminary conditional approval of the charter on February 12, 2026, as Corporate Decision 1365. The proposed title is Bridge National Trust Bank, New York, New York, proposed charter number 25393. The bank would be a wholly owned subsidiary of Bridge Ventures LLC, itself wholly owned by Stripe.

The letter says the bank plans to issue dollar stablecoins, including becoming the primary issuer of xUSD, and to offer digital-asset custody, orchestration, reserve management, and collateral trustee services. It cites the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act, the GENIUS Act, as Congress’s recognition that uninsured national banks may issue stablecoins. Final approval waits on pre-opening requirements. Until then the OCC may modify, suspend, or rescind the nod. The file records five public comments: two from bank trade groups, two from community groups, and one from a consulting firm.

Bridge’s own note on February 17, 2026, said a finished charter would let it run custody, issuance, and reserve management under direct federal oversight, subject to final OCC approval. Luxembourg’s Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier authorized Bridge Building S.A. on June 29, 2026, as a Crypto-Asset Service Provider under MiCA and as an Electronic Money Institution. ESMA later listed the firm among authorized electronic money token issuers, the 42nd entry on that register.

FROM AGREEMENT TO CHARTER QUEUE

1. October 20, 2024: Stripe finalizes a $1.1 billion bid for Bridge.
2. February 4, 2025: Stripe completes the acquisition.
3. July 2025: Stripe acquires Privy.
4. September 2025: Stripe unveils Tempo with Paradigm.
5. February 12, 2026: OCC grants preliminary conditional approval for Bridge National Trust Bank.
6. June 29, 2026: Luxembourg’s CSSF authorizes Bridge Building S.A. under MiCA and as an EMI.
7. September 24, 2026: Abrams leaves Stripe to run Open Standard full time.

The charter is still an organization-phase file, not an open bank. Sequoia does not need it to be open. Sequoia already got paid when Stripe closed.

Ribbit’s 10% Stake and the Rest of the Cap Table

Sequoia was the largest named holder, not the only one that scored. Ribbit Capital owned close to 10% of Bridge, a stake people familiar with the sale put at about $100 million. Bedrock and Index Ventures each held around 6%. Haun Ventures, Kathryn Haun’s firm, held about 4%. Representatives for Bedrock, Index, and Haun declined to comment at the time. Ribbit and Bridge did not respond.

NAMED STAKES AT THE $1.1 BILLION PRICE

Index had been in Bridge since the 2022 seed. Chris Ahn led that work at Index, then moved to Haun, so both firms sat on the same cap table when Stripe wrote the check. Coinbase Ventures also joined the August 2024 round. For those funds, Bridge was a rare 2024 crypto exit that did not wait on an IPO window.

Why Zach Abrams Left Stripe for Open Standard

On September 24, 2026, Abrams wrote that he was leaving Stripe to run Open Standard full time. He had been interim chief executive there since June while still leading Bridge. The leave note is the sharpest comment yet on what Stripe actually purchased.

I’m leaving stripe to run Open Standard full time.

at bridge, we made stablecoins more accessible. but our impact was constrained by issuers' economics and incentives.

The world needs better money. we hope to remove these constraints. https://t.co/Typ5wRlgPs

— Zach Abrams (@zcabrams) September 24, 2026

Abrams said Bridge made stablecoins easier to reach, and that the work still ran into the economics and incentives of issuers. Open Standard, he wrote, is an attempt to take those constraints off. That is a founder saying the $1.1 billion stack still sits downstream of whoever issues the dollar. Stripe can own the pipes. It does not, on that telling, own the float.

Replies treated the move as a handoff, not a breakup. Jesse Pollak of Base sent a salute. Henri Stern of Privy, the wallet firm Stripe bought in July 2025, quoted Abrams’s line about better money. One question in the thread asked whether Open Standard is part of Stripe. The company’s own post answers it: Stripe is a founding partner, not the parent.

Open Standard Puts Stripe on a Five-Partner Board

Open Standard said on September 24, 2026, that Coinbase, Mastercard, Shopify, Stripe, and Visa will join as initial founding partners. Each is investing and helping seed supply of Open USD, a dollar token the group is building for banking, cross-border payments, settlement, and institutional trading. The post puts that launch book at more than $1 billion in launch liquidity. Partners can later earn equity from the supply and activity they drive. A board is supposed to come from those founders.

OPEN STANDARD’S FIRST FIVE

• Coinbase: Exchange and USDC issuer, now a founding partner on a rival-format dollar.
• Mastercard: Card network tying the token to wallets and merchant rails.
• Shopify: Commerce platform writing merchants into the governance story.
• Stripe: Bridge’s owner, now one vote among five on an open issuer.
• Visa: Card network stressing trust and interoperability in its note.

Sequoia’s more than $100 million was real, and it arrived fast. The buyer then spent 2025 and 2026 wrapping Bridge in wallets, a chain, a trust-bank file, and EU licenses. On September 24, 2026, the man who built the target walked out to run a coin whose first board seat for Stripe is a shared one. The venture check cleared. The issuer question did not.

Frequently Asked Questions

Did Sequoia Get Cash or Stripe Stock From the Bridge Sale?

People familiar with the transaction said Stripe paid $1.1 billion in a mix of cash and stock. Stripe’s February 4, 2025 close note does not break down that split, so the cash portion of Sequoia’s more than $100 million outcome has not been published.

Where Is Bridge Headquartered?

Bridge is based in San Antonio, Texas. The OCC letter in 2026 lists Bridge Ventures LLC at 112 Gull Drive, South San Francisco, California, as the Stripe-company address on the trust-bank application.

Which Firms Backed Bridge Before Sequoia’s Series A?

Index Ventures joined Bridge’s seed in 2022, the year Abrams and Yu founded the company. Coinbase Ventures participated in the August 2024 Series A alongside Sequoia, Ribbit, Index, and Haun. PitchBook’s $58 million total is the combined figure those rounds add up to.

What Are USDB and xUSD?

The OCC’s February 12, 2026 letter says Bridge Building Inc. issues USDB, a dollar-denominated stablecoin, and white-label variants called xUSD. The proposed national trust bank plans to become the primary issuer of xUSD if it opens.

When Does the GENIUS Act Start Binding Stablecoin Issuers?

Bridge’s own explainer of U.S. stablecoin rules says compliance under the GENIUS Act will be required broadly by January 2027. Banks and credit unions can issue under their existing supervisors; nonbanks need OCC approval, which is the path Bridge National Trust Bank is on.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis of a completed private-company sale, later regulatory filings, and related stablecoin products. It is informational only and does not constitute investment advice, legal advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold Stripe stock, Sequoia funds, Bridge-related tokens, Open USD, or any other security or cryptoasset. Readers should consult a licensed financial adviser and, where a charter or license is at issue, qualified legal counsel before acting on any figure or status described here. Deal values, stakes, volumes, charter conditions, and product statuses reflect the cited company statements, OCC letter, and partner posts as dated in the piece and may change as the trust-bank file and Open Standard launch move.