NEW YORK: Klarna Group drew heavy retail interest on Wednesday as the buy-now, pay-later (BNPL) firm priced its long-awaited initial public offering at $40 per share, raising $1.37 billion and setting the stage for one of the most closely watched fintech listings of the year.
The price came in above the $35–$37 range flagged earlier, with Klarna and existing shareholders selling 34.3 million shares. The offer values the Stockholm-founded company at $15.1 billion.
For top shareholder Sequoia Capital, the debut delivers a windfall: its 2010 investment of $500 million is now worth a gain of $2.7 billion, Bloomberg reported.
From peak to reset
The valuation remains far below the $45.6 billion Klarna commanded in 2021 after a SoftBank-led fundraising, before interest rate hikes cooled investor appetite for growth-heavy fintechs. Still, the IPO marks a reset point for the sector, with retail enthusiasm signalling BNPL may be back in focus.
Retail sentiment on Stocktwits was rated “extremely bullish” ahead of the debut, with chatter hitting “extremely high” and over 1,500 users watching the ticker.
“This is wildly oversubscribed, I’m seeing more hype for this IPO than Figma,” one retail trader posted, referencing Figma’s 250% surge on its August debut.
Klarna by the numbers
Founded in 2015, Klarna reported $1.52 billion revenue in 1H 2025, up from $1.33 billion a year earlier. Net loss widened to $153 million, compared with $38 million previously.
The firm now counts 111 million active users and 790,000 merchants across its BNPL and adjacent services. Klarna is also pushing deeper into “fair financing,” offering longer-term loans to rival traditional banks.
Rival Affirm has seen its stock rise more than 40% this year, while BNPL peers such as Chime surged nearly 60% on its IPO debut earlier in 2025.
IPO market revival
Klarna’s deal arrives as Wall Street’s IPO pipeline begins to unfreeze, with easing trade tensions and prospects of multiple Federal Reserve rate cuts later this year fuelling optimism.
The company’s listing is being closely tracked as a bellwether not only for BNPL but also for fintech’s ability to regain momentum with investors after a period of rising skepticism.
