Stripe Atlas allows entrepreneurs to launch online companies in the US in just a few clicks

Atlas was unveiled on-stage at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona

Stripe said it would start the service in the US, but said it is in talks to roll out the product in other countries (Stripe)

Silicon Valley unicorn Stripe has moved away from its payments roots to launch a new service which will help online businesses in developing countries go global.

Stripe Atlas will allow entrepreneurs to launch online companies in the US in just a few clicks. The process currently takes weeks and typically costs thousands of dollars to complete.

Stripe said it would start the service in the US, but said it is in talks to roll out the product in other countries.

Atlas was unveiled on-stage at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona by Stripe’s co-founder and chief executive Patrick Collison.

“It presents them a route to start a tech business and take advantage of its potential on equal footing with a company based in Silicon Valley,” Collison explained.

Atlas will give companies an incorporated entity, a bank account, a Stripe account, and access to tax and legal advice.

Firms will also receive help from Amazon Web Services, which is one of the partners of the scheme, along with Silicon Valley Bank.

The news follows Mark Zuckerberg’s pledge earlier in the week to plough on with his Internet.org campaign to bring internet to the poorest parts of the world despite the setback of having seen Free Basics, one of the pillars of the campaign, banned in India, Facebook’s second largest market.

Stripe is valued at $5 billion after its latest funding round, making it one of the world’s most valuable so-called “unicorn” companies - start-ups with valuations of at least $1 billion.

The company was co-founded four years ago in Dublin by brothers Patrick and John Collison when they were in their early twenties before it moved headquarters to San Francisco to grow the business.