Klarna revives IPO plans, aims to raise $1.27B

Swedish buy now, pay later (BNPL) startup Klarna and its shareholders are reviving its initial public offering, hoping to raise as much as $1.27 billion in a listing that would value the company at up to $14 billion.

The company and some of its shareholders are together selling approximately 34.3 million shares between $35 and $37 each, the company said in an update to its registration statement on Tuesday. Klarna would receive proceeds from about 5.6 million shares, while its shareholders are offloading nearly 29 million shares.

The company plans to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker “KLAR.”

Klarna has long been expected to go public thanks to the massive success of its BNPL lending model in the wake of the post-pandemic boom: Six years after launching in the U.S., the company hit a valuation of more than $45 billio in 2021. However, the company has been putting off its IPO plans as the market turned at the end of the ZIRP era, its price tag declining by 85% to $6.5 billio when the 2021 venture capital valuation bubble burst. 

Still, Klarna’s been growing well: Its revenue rose 54% to $823 million in the second quarter compared to a year earlier, thanks to a 14% increase in its gross merchandise value to $6.9 billion. The company’s bottom line is still in the red with net loss coming in at $53 million, though that’s 42% less than its net loss of $92 million a year earlier.

Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and Morgan Stanley are running the offering, and BoFA Securities, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Societe Generale, UBS, and several other banks are also working on the deal.