Harsha from Stripe Capital here.

A ton of entities supply capital to businesses today -- it's one of the largest markets in the world.

We aren't trying to beat anyone else. We're just responding to the need we heard from Stripe users for a product like this. I think how we do it (in terms of how we model the risk profiles of nascent, capital-light internet business; how we present it to customers; etc.) is all pretty neat. But the innovation, if we succeed, isn't going to be in how the mechanics compare to other products. It's going to be in not hearing from Stripe businesses that access to capital is one of their biggest limiting factors.

This doesn't answer the question. That is exactly what Square Capital does (perhaps PayPal too).

I think it answers the question pretty well. They said it doesn't do anything different, and it was a missing product in their lineup that customers were expecting. Since that product is bundled to your payment processor, if you were with Stripe instead of Square or PayPal you didn't have access to those kinds of loans/cash advances.

They edited their comment to a completely different answer, without noting so. The original was just a marketing blurb.

Stripe has exactly what Square and PayPal and many other offer. Similar rates, process, terms, etc - no outsized compelling reason for one over the other (similar to CC rates)

No application and approval process?

(disclosure: I work at Square but not on Capital)

Square Capital takes only a few clicks to sign up, and loan offers automatically show up if you're already eligible [1], so this part of the offering is quite similar.

https://squareup.com/us/en/capital