Stripe logo on a smartphone with US dollar bills in the background.
Budrul Chukrut | SOPA Images | LightRocket via Getty Images
In March 2022, venture capitalist Chris Ahn was pushing to get into a hot crypto startup that was trying to make it easy for businesses to transact using digital currencies.
The company was Bridge Network. As part of his pitch, Ahn flew to a small town in northern Montana with a term sheet in hand for founders Zach Abrams and Sean Yu, both of whom had previously worked at Coinbase AND Block.
“No one else had flown in to see them in person,” Ahn, who was a partner at Index Ventures at the time, said in an interview Tuesday.
The three hiked together on a snow-melting trail, then chatted over drinks and dinner, as Ahn aimed to convince the founding duo that they should take Index’s money. At the restaurant, he looked to seal the deal.
“I told them I was going to the bathroom and I ran to my car, got the appointment slip and came back,” Ahn said. “It’s hard to put a piece of paper in a jacket without crumpling it, and I didn’t want to give them a crumpled piece of paper, so I left it in the car.
Index brought the investment, entering Bridge’s seed round in 2022. The firm was part of a more recent round, in August this year, that included Sequoia and Ribbit Capital and valued Bridge at about $350 million, according to a person with knowledge of the matter asked not to be named because the assessment was confidential. Also in the deal was Haun Ventures, founded by former Andreessen Horowitz partner Katie Haun.
Ahn left Index to join Haun in 2022. Both his old firm and his new employer have reason to celebrate this week, as Stripe agreed to buy Bridge for $1.1 billion. With this result, Index and Haun are poised to triple their investment within a few months.
A spokesman for Index declined to comment.
It’s a particularly notable exit for venture investors during a prolonged IPO drought, and marks a major win for crypto, which has had few of them despite the troves of money pouring into the industry.
For Stripe, one of the most highly valued tech startups, the acquisition of Bridge will be the largest yet. Bridge said the transaction is still subject to regulatory approvals and other conditions and is expected to close in the coming months.