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Kickstarter ditches Amazon Payments, moves to Stripe for 'faster checkouts'

Kickstarter ditches Amazon Payments, moves to Stripe for 'faster checkouts'

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Good news for crowdsourcing projects: Kickstarter has announced that it’s dropping Amazon Payments in favor of San Francisco-based startup Stripe. The company says this will give backers "a simpler, faster, and easier checkout process," while project creators will no longer have to set up an Amazon Payments business account to get their money. Kickstarter — which has been using Amazon’s services since it was founded — says it made the decision to switch after the online retailer discontinued the payment product the site was using. It also added that fees would not change for backers or project creators.

Stripe already boasts Twitter, Reddit, and Facebook among its clients

For Stripe, Kickstarter is another famous name in its client list. The online payment service — founded in 2012 by Irish brothers Patrick and John Collison — currently handles transactions for the likes of Lyft, TaskRabbit, Instacart, Twitter, Reddit, and is working with Facebook. The company has made its name by promising developers a streamlined payment platform, and by doing away with competitors’ complicated payment systems in favor of a flat rate. After a fundraising round late last year worth $70 million, the company is currently valued at $3.5 billion.