{"id":216622,"date":"2025-09-10T22:31:23","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T22:31:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/216622\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T22:31:23","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T22:31:23","slug":"klarnas-ipo-pops-raising-1-4b-with-sequoia-as-the-biggest-winner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/216622\/","title":{"rendered":"Klarna’s IPO pops, raising $1.4B, with Sequoia as the biggest winner"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been a long road for the 20-year-old fintech Klarna to make it to an IPO<\/a>. But on Wednesday, the company successfully landed on the New York Stock Exchange, having raised $1.4 billion<\/a>, largely for its existing investors, rather than itself. <\/p>\n

The fintech giant sold shares at $40, above its announced range of $35 to $37, and came out of the gate with a $15 billion valuation. Shares popped, opening at $52, though quickly settling down to around $46 mid-day.<\/p>\n

Of the 34.3 million shares Klarna sold, only 5 million were sold by the company, it said<\/a>. The rest were sold by existing investors like the company\u2019s largest shareholder Sequoia Capital. Entities controlled by Dutch billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen, Silver Lake, BlackRock, and many others sold as well. Despite cashing out some shares, all of them are holding onto the majority of their stakes.<\/p>\n

Figma\u2019s IPO did a similar thing. Yet, often these existing investors don\u2019t want to sell at the IPO price<\/a>, a VC told TechCrunch. They kick in shares to help the company meet IPO demand. Floating more shares helps the company obtain a more accurate, and perhaps higher, valuation out of the gate because it helps the IPO attract the biggest institutional investors who wouldn\u2019t bother with an IPO for a small allocation.<\/p>\n

In Klarna\u2019s case co-founder CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski did not sell any shares. His stake was worth $1.02 billion at the IPO selling price of $40 and he controls about 7.5% of the company. <\/p>\n

Victor Jacobsson, the co-founder who left the company in 2012<\/a>, did sell but was, and still is, a slightly larger shareholder. He cashed out of 1.1 million shares and still retains over 8% of the company. <\/p>\n

Co-founder Niklas Adalberth still owns just under 3 million shares, Klarna disclosed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sequoia is by far the biggest investor in Klarna, controlling nearly 23% of the company. Famed VC Michael Moritz wrote Klarna\u2019s first check on Sequoia\u2019s behalf in 2010, and stayed on as Klarna\u2019s chairperson even after he left Sequoia in 2023. Some drama ensued when Sequoia added another member<\/a> to Klarna\u2019s board. But it eventually sorted itself out when Sequoia\u2019s Andrew Reed joined its board in 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis moment feels surreal,\u201d Siemiatkowski shared in published remarks<\/a>. \u201cWhen we started Klarna back in 2005, it was just a wild idea \u2014 me, Niklas, and Victor, fumbling around, trying to make shopping and payments smoother for people. We got rejected left and right, laughed at more times than I can count. But we kept going.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued, \u201cGoing public in New York is huge. It\u2019s not just a milestone; it\u2019s a statement. It\u2019s proof that a bunch of stubborn dreamers from Stockholm can take on the world \u2014 and win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Interestingly, though, $1.4 billion is not the record for the biggest IPO of 2025. That\u2019s still held by CoreWeave, which raised $1.5 billion in June<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been a long road for the 20-year-old fintech Klarna to make it to an IPO. But on…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":216623,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,111980,38761,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-216622","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-klarna","10":"tag-sequoia-capital","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115182378565080943","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}