It was a long way for the 20 -year -old Fintech Klarna to reach an iPo. But on Wednesday, the company landed successfully on the New York Stock Exchange, with increased $ 1.4 billionTo a large extent for its existing investors, rather than for himself.
The Fintech giant sold shares in $ 40, over the announced series of $ 35 to $ 37, and came out of the gate of $ 15 billion. The shares fell, opening to $ 52, though they quickly settled in about $ 46 in the middle of the day.
Of the 34.3 million shares sold by Klarna, only 5 million were sold by the company, said. The rest was sold by existing investors, such as the largest shareholder of the company’s Sequoia Capital. Entities controlled by Dutch billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen, Silver Lake, Blackrock and many others who are also sold. Despite the disappearance of certain shares, they all hold the majority of their shares.
Figma’s IPO did a similar thing. However, often these existing investors do not want to sell at the IPO price, one VC told TechCrunch. It beats in shares to help the company meet the IPO demand. Achieving more shares helps the company get a more accurate and perhaps higher valuation than the gateway because it helps IPO to attract the largest institutional investors who will not deal with an iPO for a small distribution.
In the case of Klarna, co -founder CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski did not send shares. Its share amounted to $ 1.02 billion in the IPO of IPO of $ 40 and controls about 7.5% of the company.
Victor Jacobsson, the co -founder who abandoned the company in 2012, was selling but was, and is still a slightly larger shareholder. He examined 1.1 million shares and still holds over 8% of the company.
Co -founder Niklas Adalbeth still holds only 3 million shares, Klarna revealed.
Sequoia is by far the largest investor in Klarna, controlling almost 23% of the company. The famous VC Michael Moritz wrote Klarna’s first check on behalf of Sequoia in 2010 and remained as president of Klarna, even after Sequoia’s departure in 2023. Some drama followed when Sequoia added another member on the Board of Directors of Klarna. But he was eventually classified when Andrew Reed of Sequoia joined his Board of Directors in 2024.
“This moment feels surreal”, Siemiatkowski is shared in published observations. “When we started Klarna in 2005, it was just a wild idea – I, Niklas and Victor, who were sinking, trying to do shopping and payments more to people.
He continued: “The transition to New York is enormous, not only a milestone, it is a statement, it is proof that a stubborn beam from Stockholm can take the world – and win.”
Interestingly, however, $ 1.4 billion is not the record for the largest IPO of 2025. This is still Coreweave, which raised $ 1.5 billion in June.
