The Swedish financial technologies company Klarna is raising $800 million in a funding round advised by Goldman Sachs. The sum is planned to flow primarily into the company’s expansion in the U.S., where Klarna has roughly 30 million users. However, Klarna’s current valuation of $6.7 billion is a significant drop from the $45,7 billion the company secured in 2021 in the funding round led by Japanese SoftBank.
The business prospects of financial services such as Klarna are currently viewed skeptically by many stakeholders, in part as consumers are expected to cut back on spending in the face of high inflation and a weakening economy. According to Fashion United, Klarna’s founder and chief executive Sebastian Semiatkowski pointed out in a press conference that the stock market was currently experiencing the worst downturn in decades and that the economic situation was challenging. He said that even listed companies had suffered markdowns of 75 to 90 percent in some cases. He said Klarna would focus more on profitability again in light of the change in investor sentiment - but that it had recently built a global platform with 150 million users.
