Fintech: Sweden's Klarna Raises $640M, Valued At $46B

Baraka Chat
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Klarna, Europe’s premier “buy now, pay later” financing startup has closed a big new round of funding. It’s a $639mn financing round valuing it a whopping $45.6bn.

  • The financing round was led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2, a new investor in the company. Other existing investors including Adit Ventures and WestCap Group also chipped into the round.

  • With a $46bn valuation, Klarna has taken the top spot as the most valuable privately-held tech startup in Europe, according to CB Insights data. Globally, it’s the second-most valuable, only beaten by American payments processor Stripe.

A company based out of Sweden, Klarna has built itself into the leading “buy now, pay later” provider globally, beating out Afterpay in Australia and Affirm in America. The company reported $1.1bn in net revenue on a gross merchandise volume of $53bn in 2020.

After conquering many markets in Europe, Klarna’s major focus is now in the US, where it launched in 2020. At that, it’s been very successful with a self-reported 18 million users in the country.

With its new funding, Klarna said it has its eyes mostly set on continued international expansion. Such is not surprising for a company reported to be eyeing a public listing soon.

With its latest round, Klarna has now raised a total of [$3.7bn] in venture funding. That sets a record for a European tech startup.

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We’ve already seen the ripple effect in the region when Affirm went public in the US.

  1. Checkout.com leading an investment round of $110 million in Tamara.
  2. Recently one Australian startup acquired Spotii, a Dubai based BNPL startup.

With global news like Klarna, I believe Tabby will soon announce its huge investment round. Just a matter of time.

Everyone is now focusing on e-commerce but there is a huge alternate market for buy now, pay later such as fly now, pay later, etc. Excited to see what happens.

It’s not very innovative I think :stuck_out_tongue: