Klarna Secures $1.2B Raise in $14B IPO After Wiping Out 70% of its Value…

“It’s not a 70% loss if I don’t sell” - Klarna investors, probably 

Klarna just crawled back to Wall Street after ghosting earlier this year… and it wants $1.27 billion for its trouble. In short, the Swedish BNPL shop finally unfroze its long-awaited U.S. IPO, shelving the excuse that tariffs made Klarna it’s b*tch the market “too volatile”. Now it’s aiming for a $14 billion valuation… which sounds great until you all the poor suckers who invested in the BNPL player at… *checks notes*... $45.6 billion back in 2021.

(Source: Giphy) 

As for the new deal, we have 4.3 million shares, priced between $35–$37. Klarna itself is dumping just 5.6 million of them, while its backers… Sequoia, Heartland, and assorted insiders… are unloading nearly 29 million. 

(Source: Bloomberg)

In other words, the “growth story” is really a liquidity event for VCs who’ve been underwater since Russia invaded Ukraine. Goldman, JPMorgan, and Morgan Stanley are running the books, which means they’ll get their fees no matter how bloody this thing trades. Ticker will be KLAR.With that said, the numbers aren’t necessarily awful, but they’re not IPO porn either. Revenue in Q2 climbed 20% year-over-year to $823 million… but, losses widened to $53 million from last year’s $38 million. For the first six months of 2025, Klarna’s net loss hit $153 million on $1.52 billion of revenue. Management insists it’s because they’re setting aside more reserves for loans “just in case.” Translation: BNPL defaults are creeping up, but don’t panic, shoppers are totally fine.

Additionally, CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski still swears Klarna isn’t just a glorified layaway app. He wants the world to think of Klarna as a digital bank… complete with debit cards, deposits, and dreams of global scale. Meanwhile, rivals like Affirm are up 34% this year, siphoning U.S. market share while Klarna spent 2025 stuck in limbo. 

(Source: Giphy) 

And yet, despite the slow rolling, the irony here is that Klarna times this thing perfectly… for insiders. A $14B listing gives early backers a clean-ish exit, while anyone dumb enough to buy the SoftBank top at $45B can only sit there, staring at their underwater equity like it’s an NFT of a dead monkey.

Meaning Klarna is finally getting its ticker, bankers get their fees, and retail bagholders get to find out whether splitting payments into four makes sense when the stock splits your portfolio in half. What a time to be alive. Until next time, friends… 

At the time of publishing, Stocks.News does not hold positions in companies mentioned in the article.