For its new funding round, the Swedish BNPL giant could have to settle for a valuation of $15 billion according to the “Wall Street Journal”.
This is 30 billion less than during its previous fundraising, a year ago. That round made Klarna the most valuable fintech startup in Europe.
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According to the “Wall Street Journal”, the Swedish fintech is currently in discussions with its investors to complete a round of funding of 500 million dollars, half of what the company hoped to obtain.
This would have significantly worsened the conditions, just a few weeks ago there were reports that Klarna wanted to raise one billion euros with a valuation of 28.5 billion euros.
Shortly thereafter, with reference to the unfavorable market environment, the company announced that it would lay off ten percent of its global employees – which corresponds to around 700 people.
At the same time, it became known that the pre-tax loss had tripled to minus 240 million euros in the first three months of the year.
The “vast majority” of Klarna employees are not affected by the measures, said co-founder Sebastian Siemiatkowski, but “some have been informed that we cannot offer them a role in the new organization”. “When we formulated our business plans for 2022 last fall, it was a very different world from the one we are in today,” said Siemiatkowski.
“Since then we have witnessed a tragic and unnecessary war in Ukraine, a shift in consumer sentiment, a spike in inflation, a highly volatile stock market and a probable recession,” he added.
