Klarna boss talks coronavirus as PayTech turns 15
Yesterday marked buy now, pay later Klarna’s 15th birthday and it brought some mixed emotions for CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski.
“Alongside nostalgia and pride in our journey so far, and excitement for the future, I’m heavy with concern for the situation the world is currently in,” he said in an online post.
“Instead of the planned celebrations together in our offices this week, our employees are currently spread out at 3,000 home offices in the 17 different countries Klarna operates. I am extremely proud of their resilience, dedication, and passion they show everyday to give our customers the best possible shopping experience.”
As for the company’s retail partners, “for some of them this is a really challenging time but they will persevere and adapt, for others they see new demand for their products. All 200,000+ have one thing in common, they are currently working extremely hard in difficult circumstances.”
It’s a little bit funny
Late last year, Siemiatkowski refused to rule out taking public Europe’s most valuable FinTech venture, although another funding round was also possible.
A $460 million investment pegged the payment venture’s worth at $5.5 billion back in August 2019. Asked by TechCrunch to confirm that it had raised $1.2 billion altogether from investors, Sebastian Siemiatkowski quipped: “It sounds like you know better than I do”.
As for going public, he said: “It was kind of funny, because I was reading an interview with Michael Moritz, who’s on our board, and he was saying that we were going to stay private forever. So, I don’t know, it’s hard for me to know what’s true anymore. People are reporting different things about Klarna.”
When asked about the possibility of another private round, Siemiatkowski commented: “We are in a very exciting phase right now, where the US and UK is growing so fast for us. . . And we want to continue investing. We think the potential market in in the US is just massive.”
He continued: “So we’ll see what happens, but I wouldn’t rule it out, that one thing that could happen is raise even more money to be investing even more in growth and product delivery, and new products and services, as well as sales and marketing in the US.”
