Klarna has become the largest private fintech start-up in Europe after a new funding round valued the Swedish payments group at $5.5bn ahead of a potential stock market flotation.
The Swedish “buy now and pay later” company raised $460m in equity from investors including Silicon Valley venture capital company Dragoneer, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, and funds managed by the world’s largest asset management group BlackRock.
Klarna’s valuation has risen from $2.5bn at the start of this year to $3.5bn in April when existing shareholders such as Hennes & Mauritz, Sequoia Capital and Permira invested fresh equity to today’s post-money valuation of $5.5bn, ranking it as the eighth most valuable private fintech globally.
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