GOLDMAN Sachs Group is offering its richest clients access to a fundraising round for Stripe, the payments giant that’s trying to raise billions in part to cover a looming tax bill.

The bank is setting up a special vehicle open to its private-wealth clients for investing in just one asset: Stripe’s roughly US$4 billion fundraise, people familiar with the matter said.

Separately, Goldman has a mandate along with JPMorgan Chase & Co to help raise the funds for Stripe from a wide swath of investors. Stripe needs the money to cash out veteran employees’ restricted stock units in the coming year as well as to pay off a looming tax bill associated with that move. The company brought in the banks in January as it weighed either a direct listing or a separate capital raise.

It’s unclear what structure Goldman is offering its wealthy clients and the amount it will raise from them, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public.

The offering echoes a deal Goldman spearheaded for Uber Technologies in 2015 when the investment bank placed the car-pooling company’s convertible bond with its wealth-management clients.

The strategy is a way to augment offerings for high-net-worth clients by bringing them into some of the hottest technology names before they become public while allowing companies to remain private for longer.

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Representatives for Stripe and Goldman declined to comment.

Stripe, which has dual headquarters in San Francisco and Dublin, has been in talks with investors about raising new funding. The company, led by chief executive officer Patrick Collison, has told potential investors it will turn a profit this year and is on track to process US$1 trillion in payments.

Investors including General Catalyst Partners, Founders Fund Management and Andreessen Horowitz have said they would participate in the latest round, while Thrive Capital, a venture-capital firm founded by Joshua Kushner, has said it would invest US$1 billion in the company. The valuation being discussed is roughly US$55 billion prior to the capital infusion, a sizable decline from the US$95 billion Stripe received when it raised US$600 million from investors in 2021. BLOOMBERG