Buy-now pay-later (BNPL) giant Klarna has filed for an initial public offering (IPO) in the US, formally starting proceedings for a blockbuster stock market debut.
The Swedish fintech company confidentially submitted the relevant paperwork to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), it said last night.
Klarna added that the number of shares to be offered and the price range for the planned IPO have not yet been determined, giving no hints on the valuation it is seeking.
It was reported earlier this year that the firm was in talks with banks about a New York IPO and was targeting a $20bn price tag.
Late last month, shareholder Chrysalis increased the value of its stake in the fintech, which analysts at Deutsche Bank said gave Klarna an implied valuation of around $14.6bn.
That would be a significant improvement from Klarna’s last official price tag of $6.7bn in a 2022 funding round but still well below the $45.6bn valuation it secured in 2021.
Klarna was founded in Stockholm in 2005 and offers a range of payment services to around 85m active consumers across more than 575,000 merchants globally. It is the UK’s largest BNPL firm, providing interest-free instalment loans to shoppers at checkout.
As one of Europe’s most valuable private tech firms, Klarna’s IPO has been long anticipated. Chief executive Sebastian Siemiatkowski said in August that a float in 2025 “sounds reasonable”, but noted that the firm had yet to formally decide on a date.
He hinted that Klarna was leaning towards a US listing but said it had also considered some European options.
Klarna said its IPO is expected to take place after the SEC completes its review process, subject to market and other conditions.
The news comes shortly after Klarna’s shareholders voted to oust Mikael Walther from the firm’s board of directors last month following a clash with chair Mike Moritz and chief executive Sebastian Siemiatkowski.
Klarna has not turned an annual profit since 2018, when it began aggressively expanding into the lucrative US market. But the firm has made progress on its bottom line this year, swinging to an adjusted profit in the first half of 2024.
It is now pushing for more profitable growth by cutting thousands of jobs with the help of artificial intelligence.