The $9 billion payments startup Stripe just relaunched Atlas–a portal that automates many aspects of establishing an e-business, such as bank account opening, payments, or share issuance.
The portal first launched as an “experiment” in February of last year, according to Atlas program lead Taylor Francis. Back then, the portal was open to entrepreneurs outside of the U.S. Francis said in a blogpost:
Since we announced Atlas, thousands of entrepreneurs from 124 countries have used Atlas to start their company. Since then, we’ve heard from thousands of entrepreneurs located within the U.S. who want to use Atlas, and we’ve worked with many founders based in the U.S. to get their companies started. (And it’s not a surprise—Atlas sets up every company with the standard defaults and banking infrastructure used by top U.S. tech companies.) So, starting today, Atlas is now officially open for business for U.S. founders, and we’re working to add more benefits to Atlas that will specifically be useful to founders in the U.S.
Among the “improvements” is faster bank account opening. Stripe signed with Silicon Valley Bank last year to allow startups based outside of the U.S. to set up USD-denominated business bank accounts.
Previously, enabling accounts via SVB would take “a few days;” Stripe has now reduced the process down to minutes. “In addition, Atlas founders can request a U.S. debit card that makes it easy to sign up for other services and pay for other products,” Francis said in the post.
Since the initial, invite-only launch, Atlas signed more than 200 international startups. The company now wants to expand the pool of startups, allowing current members to also send out invites. Startups can also apply for Atlas directly here.
Opening up the platform for U.S. entrepreneurs can potentially increase Stripe’s footprint among the local startups. The service will charge companies the standard Stripe fee of 2.9% — in addition to $0.30 — per transaction.
Checkout the demo of Atlas: