Palo Alto-based Whop has closed a $200 million Series D led by Sequoia Capital and Shopify Ventures at a $5.1 billion valuation, and plans to open offices in Europe and Colombia, Bloomberg reported.
2The company said the capital will fund its expansion abroad and research into payments and advertising. Tether invested $200 million in Whop in February at a $1.6 billion valuation, which means the company’s valuation has more than tripled in eight months.
Whop describes its customers as business operators, from product chiefs at high-growth startups to 16-year-olds running their first business. It gives them a gamified interface and an extensive API for distribution, business creation and money. The company says roughly 25,000 operators generate $550 million a month on the platform, with more than 50,000 other people earning monthly from services to those businesses. Cumulative on-platform transactions have passed $7 billion across 185 countries.
That API can be driven by AI agents through the Whop CLI, released in July, which lets operators run their businesses via prompts. The CLI and the company’s MCP connectors handle 350,000-plus calls per day, and monthly active users top 14,700, according to the announcement. Whop has also launched Business Blueprints, which deploys a ready-to-sell business in a few clicks and has produced more than 21,000 businesses in six weeks, and Economic Intelligence, which recommends the highest-ROI next move for a business based on millions of past transactions. Economic Intelligence is paid for with an extra percentage of the revenue a business earns from using it.
In its announcement, Whop pointed to a Forbes report that entry-level job opportunities are at an all-time low and said AI is calling traditional career paths into question. The company pitches itself as a way for people to earn on their own terms, and says most businesses on it serve hyper-specific customer needs, citing neobanks for dropshippers, private jet booking platforms, invoicing software for trucking companies, data suppliers for humanoid robotics companies and emergency tree removal services.
“We take inspiration from the traditional economy in designing Whop, and because businesses are the primary conduit by which people earn money and create value, we focus on them as our primary customer,” said Steven Schwartz, co-founder and CEO.
Sequoia partner Doug Leone joins the board as part of the deal, per Bloomberg. “They’re doing about a half billion revenue, business is doing great, and we’re helping humanity create businesses for people who can’t find a job,” he said in the announcement.
Whop’s annualized run-rate revenue recently went past $400 million, from $60 million at the beginning of 2025, Bloomberg reported. Schwartz told the outlet that most revenue is a percentage of each transaction processed on the platform, with a blended average fee of about 6%. Its three founders, who met as teenagers over software that tracked sneaker releases, started the company in 2021; it employs around 110 people and has an office in New York.
Earlier investors include A*, Peter Thiel, Insight Partners and Bain Capital Ventures, per Bloomberg.
Whop is hiring for engineering, product, sales and operations roles.