Klarna, the Sweden-based payment technology producer backed by corporates Visa, Ant Group, Bonnier, Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) and Bestseller Group, closed $1bn in financing from unnamed new and existing investors yesterday.
The funding was secured at a $31bn post-money valuation and the company claimed it was four-times oversubscribed.
Formerly known as Kreditor, Klarna provides a service that enables e-commerce customers to secure consumer finance at the point of purchase, allowing them to buy products they can pay for in instalments. Its revenue rose 56% year on year to $1bn, it said yesterday.
The valuation almost tripled the $10.7bn valuation at which the company raised $650m from Silver Lake, GIC, HMI Capital and funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, in September 2020.
Media group Bonnier, Merian Chrysalis, TCV and Northzone all bought Klarna shares through a secondary purchase also announced in September, with fashion retailer H&M possibly among the sellers.
Ant Group, the financial services affiliate of e-commerce group Alibaba, had supplied an undisclosed amount for the company six months earlier, after financial services firm CBA had invested $200m in January 2020.
CBA had contributed $100m to a $460m round for Klarna in 2019 at a $5.5bn valuation. It was led by Dragoneer Investment Group and included fashion brand Bestseller, Sequoia Capital, Första AP-Fonden, IVP, HMI Capital, Merian Chrysalis, IPGL and funds and accounts managed by BlackRock.
Casa Verde Capital had provided an undisclosed sum for the company earlier that year at a $2.5bn valuation, following an undisclosed amount from payment services firm Visa in 2017 and $20m from H&M in 2018.
Klarna had previously received over $345m from investors including Brightfolk, Öresund, Atomico, Northzone, Wellcome Trust, Creandum and Permira.
