Klarna has filed for a US initial public offering, which the buy-now-pay-later lender hopes will go ahead in April 2025 at the earliest. An exact date has not been set.
The IPO prospectus, which Klarna filed on 14 March, reveals that the company has applied to the US Securities and Exchange Commission to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker KLAR.
Klarna, headquartered in Stockholm where it was founded in 2005, hasn’t yet disclosed the number of shares to be offered or the expected price range, but analysts estimate that the IPO could value the company at around $15bn. Analysts also estimate that the listing could raise approximately $1bn for the business to invest in its services and expansion. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley will act as book runners on the IPO.
Return to profitability boosts Klarna’s valuation
As part of its IPO filing, Klarna said that it returned to profit in 2024. It reported a net profit of $21m, versus a loss of $244m the previous year, as revenue rose almost 24% to $2.81bn.
The return to profitability has helped rebuild Klarna’s standing among would-be investors. The company’s valuation crashed from $46bn in a SoftBank-led funding round in 2021 to $6.7bn in its most recent primary fundraising round in 2022 as investor appetite for promising start-ups waned amid rising interest rates and global economic uncertainty. While the group’s current valuation of roughly $15bn may be a long way short of its peak, it represents a solid recovery from the nadir of three years ago.
Last year, CMC CapX – the capital markets arm of CMC Markets – gave its clients access to Klarna shares in the secondary market, pre-IPO, when Klarna’s valuation was around $11bn. CapX offers professional investors exclusive opportunities to access private markets, with past deals including SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic. If you’d like to learn more about participating in unique, unlisted investment opportunities, visit the CapX homepage.
Klarna may be catalyst for fintech IPO boom
Klarna's IPO could help “unlock a pipeline of British fintech flotations after a barren period for new technology listings,” according to Reuters. The news agency quoted James Wootton, a partner at Linklaters, the law firm that advised money transfer company Wise on its London listing in 2021, as saying that “any successful IPO of a high-profile business in the sector will be a catalyst for others to look again at an IPO as a strategic option for growth and/or liquidity.”
The article, published on 24 March, also suggested that challenger banks such as Monzo, Starling, Revolut and Zopa, as well as payment companies Zilch and Ebury, may be waiting in the wings, with bosses likely watching Klarna’s IPO closely as they mull a listing of their own.
Hopes of an uptick in IPO activity are also being felt in the US. “Klarna’s expected IPO in April comes at a time when the shares of rivals like Affirm [the largest buy-now-pay-later lender in the US] have struggled,” said Michael Kramer, the founder of New York-based investment firm Mott Capital Management. “The upcoming IPO also comes during a period of significant uncertainty and volatility in US markets. If the company can pull off a successful IPO, it could pave the way for other buy-now-pay-later companies to follow.”
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