“Can Pinterest convert visual discovery at scale into a commerce and advertising revenue engine that rivals social-first competitors?”
Founded2010
HQSan Francisco, California, USA
FoundersBen Silbermann, Paul Sciarra, Evan Sharp
Total raised~$1.5B (pre-IPO)
Latest roundIPO (NYSE: PINS), April 2019
Valuation~$10.6B at IPO (mid-range)
IndustryMarketplace / Two-sided
The story
Pinterest launched in 2010 as a visual bookmarking tool and grew into a discovery and inspiration platform with 570 million monthly active users. The company has consistently pushed toward social commerce, launching Buyable Pins with Stripe in 2015 as its first direct commerce foray. After its 2019 IPO, Pinterest has continued to deepen its commerce and advertising infrastructure, most recently upgrading its global payments stack by partnering with Checkout.com to handle advertiser billing at scale across international markets.
Product timeline
2010
Pinterest launched as a visual bookmarking / digital pinboard platform.· pivot
2015
Launched 'Buyable Pins' in partnership with Stripe, enabling in-platform product purchases.· banking
2019
Completed IPO on NYSE under ticker PINS at ~$10.6B valuation.· ipo
2025
Selected Checkout.com as global payments partner to improve advertiser payment performance across international markets.· banking
The stack
3 layers disclosed in Pinterest’s embedded-finance stack
Payments / PSP
Lending
in the full report
FX & payouts
in the full report
Accounting gap: none
3 more providers across 2 layers, with confidence-scored evidence and source URLs, are in the Embedded Finance Index report.