Tech

Whop Raises $200M at $5.1B Valuation, Tripling Its Worth Since February

Published on October 23, 2026

Whop, a marketplace for creators and business operators, has closed a $200 million Series D at a $5.1 billion valuation led by Sequoia Capital and Shopify Ventures. The round marks Whop’s second fundraise of 2026, following a $200 million strategic investment from Tether in February that valued the company at $1.6 billion.

Whop said in a press release that the new capital will fund global expansion and research and development aimed at making its payment and advertising infrastructure more efficient. Sequoia Partner Doug Leone, who is joining Whop’s board, said the company is “doing about a half billion revenue” in run-rate terms and is “still accelerating,” according to a post published by Sequoia.

Whop operates as a marketplace where business operators sell digital products, subscriptions and services, built around a gamified interface and an API that powers distribution, commerce and payments. The company said roughly 25,000 business operators generate $550 million on the platform each month, and that it pays out income to more than 50,000 additional people monthly who provide services to those businesses. Sequoia put the pace of new business creation at 10,000 per day and said Whop is now part of the curriculum at Stanford, MIT, Harvard, Princeton and Columbia.

“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, Whop’s co-founder and CEO.

According to Sequoia, Schwartz and co-founder Cameron Zoub built an early version of the business around creators clipping and reposting other people’s videos for pay, a model Whop formalized as its Whop Clips program. Sequoia said the pair had been writing software and reselling sneakers online as teenagers in Chicago before founding the company.

Three Product Launches in Three Months

Whop has shipped three products since July. “Business Blueprints,” which lets operators launch a pre-built business in a few clicks, has produced more than 21,000 businesses in six weeks. “Whop CLI,” which makes the company’s API compatible with AI agents, together with its MCP connectors, receives more than 350,000 calls per day from over 14,700 monthly active users. “Economic Intelligence,” a decision engine trained on Whop’s transaction data that recommends moves to individual businesses, charges an additional percentage of revenue generated through its recommendations.

As reported by Tech Funding News, the round follows Whop’s February deal with Tether, in which the stablecoin issuer invested $200 million to integrate its Wallet Development Kit into Whop’s platform, enabling self-custodial USD₮ and USA₮ payments. At the time, Whop said it supported more than 18.4 million users, and that platform participants were generating roughly $3 billion in annual earnings, with gross transaction volume rising about 25% month over month.

Whop is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, with an additional office in New York, and said it is hiring across engineering, product, sales, and operations.