Payment technology provider Stripe aims to equip global entrepreneurs with the necessary banking and payments relationships to launch an online business in the U.S.
The new service, called Atlas, allows online businesses anywhere in the world to incorporate as a U.S. business entity in Delaware and obtain a U.S. bank account and tax ID number.
Silicon Valley Bank, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Amazon and law firm Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe partnered with Stripe to provide Atlas users with bank accounts, tax advice, legal guidance, and online building tools, including $15,000 in Amazon Web Services credit.
"The promise of the Internet is that geography should be largely irrelevant," CEO Patrick Collison said in a Feb. 24 news release. "But that's not yet true: the majority of the world's population lives in a country where they don't have access to high-quality banking or payments infrastructure."
Stripe also introduced its advisory board for Atlas, which includes former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and former New York superintendent of financial services Ben Lawsky.
Atlas launched Wednesday in private beta, priced at $500. It aims to break barriers to incorporating in a foreign country, a process it called "elitist and exclusionary," by helping users navigate the complex financial and legal landscape at a lower investment of time and money. Stripe claims the product shortens the time it would take to enlist these services from months to days.
Stripe plans to expand Atlas to other countries "over time."
"There's a lot of latent potential in places like Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East," Collison said, "places where developers and entrepreneurs simply aren't on a level playing field with people in more developed economies."
