Not every white hot deca-corn valuation is going down the tubes this fall. Payment (and, now, lending) app Stripe ($PRIVATE:STRIPE) is bucking that ugly trend, and has grown its valuation by around 50% this year alone, thanks to a $250 million capital infusion that values it at a whopping $35 billion. It could be the most highly-valued unicorn in the world - although that's fluctuating very quickly, today. 

What's more is, the financial services app is on a rocket-like growth trajectory - no matter what data you use to gauge its scale. The company's LinkedIn ($MSFT) Headcount increased nearly 9% this year - and it appears to have gone on a hiring spree in the last few weeks, as the expectation of the latest batch growth capital became a reality. 

But that's nothing in comparison to Stripe's job postings - those, are up nearly 40% in 2019. Currently, the company has more than 400 open positions - nearly double what Square ($SQ) has listed online (not pictured - 223 job postings).

Stripe isn't just a payment app any longer - its scale is pitting it against traditional Wall Street firms, and the company has recently launched a lending business. Patrick and John Collison, the brothers who founded the company in 2009, have avoided taking funding from big banks - instead turning to a slew of boldface Silicon Valley names to raise more than $1 billion in aggregate funding from individual investors and VCs like Andreessen Horowitz, Y Combinator, Tiger Global, Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. 

Now, not everyone is on Stripe's trajectory. Paypal ($PYPL) has seen its stock price increase by about 29% over the course of 2019 - but its job postings have plummeted as of late, falling 38%. Square - which has grown job postings this year - is about breakeven as a stock this year.

About the Data: 

Thinknum tracks companies using information they post online - jobs, social and web traffic, product sales and app ratings - and creates data sets that measure factors like hiring, revenue and foot traffic. Data sets may not be fully comprehensive (they only account for what is available on the web), but they can be used to gauge performance factors like staffing and sales. 

Further Reading: 

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