Klarna Plans IPO in NYSE in H1 of 2025

Klarna Group Plc, the Swedish Buy Now Pay Later firm, has submitted a draft Registration Statement on Form F-1 to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) relating to the proposed initial public offering (IPO) of its ordinary shares in New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in H1 of 2025.

The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the proposed offering have not yet been determined.

The IPO is expected to take place after the SEC completes its review process, subject to market and other conditions, Klarna said without mentioned the date, the number of shares that it would offer or the price range per share.

Klarna’s decision to file for IPO at a valuation that could reach up to $20 billion. The e-commerce company has built a global reputation with its e-commerce solutions. The European capital markets suffered a jolt with Klarna’s decision to pursue a listing in the US though the region’s bourses were trying to encourage local tech companies to list at home.

The IPO is likely to enable Klarna generate additional revenue by launching more traditional products and personal financial management tools. This expansion could also position Klarna into a global financial power player.

The value of Klarna, which was founded in 2005, was put around $15 billion. The Swedish fintech firm raised $639 million in a new funding round led by SoftBank Vision 2and was valued around $46.5 billion in 2021, sharply increasing from $5.5 billion two years before.

The latest funding round was invested by companies such as Adit Ventures, Honeycomb Asset Management and WestCap Group and made Klarna the second-biggest fintech start-up by valuation after another fintech firm Stripe.

Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski previously told CNBC that unfavourable rules in Europe on employee stock options could risk the company losing talent to the US tech giants such as Google, Apple and Meta.

Klarna Was Planning IPO

Plans for an IPO have been in the works for some time. Siemiatkowski said an IPO in 2024 was not impossible. The California-based Affirm, one of the company’s key competitors, went public in 2021 and is now valued at about $18 billion.

The company was buoyed by its half yearly earnings in August this year when it said that the revenue increased by 27%, with adjusted profits reaching $66 million as against $45 million adjusted loss in the same period last year.

In a move aimed to strengthen its capital, Klarna also finalised a deal to transfer $37.89 billion worth of its UK loans to the US hedge fund Elliott Investment Management in October this year.

Klarna said that it was focusing its growth strategy on the US, where it has signed partnerships with merchants including Apple and Uber Eats. It was regularly profitable until 2019, when it decided it would accept some credit losses in order to pursue US expansion.