Swedish Fintech Company Klarna Accelerates its Growth

The Swedish payment provider Klarna grew more strongly at the start of the year. Revenues climbed by 29 percent to 6.4 billion Swedish kronor (560 million euros) in the first quarter, the fintech company announced on Thursday. The flourishing US business contributed to this in particular. In 2023, the increase was 22 percent.

Thanks to falling costs through the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and personnel savings, Klarna achieved an adjusted gross profit of almost 20 million euros. In the same period last year, the quarterly balance sheet showed an adjusted gross loss of around 43 million euros. The company has 150 million active customers worldwide and carries out two million transactions per day.

In an interview with Handelsblatt in March, co-founder and company CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski announced that Klarna would also be profitable for the full year

AI is contributing to this, for example in the form of the chatbot Kiki, which is based on the language model ChatGPT from OpenAI. In addition, AI helped to reduce marketing and sales expenses by eleven percent in the first quarter, it was said. As an example, Klarna cited savings in image creation through the use of programs such as Midjourney, Dall-E and Firefly.

Klarna was once the most expensive non-listed European start-up. The valuation rose to almost 46 billion dollars during the Corona period, but fell to just under seven billion dollars in the following year as a result of the interest rate turnaround and the crash of tech stocks on the stock market.

The company, founded in 2005, is now considered the most promising candidate for going public this year. Siemiatkowski recently stated that Klarna is preparing for a debut on the stock market. The valuation could rise again to as much as 20 billion dollars.

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(Featured image by Jonas Leupe via Unsplash)

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First published in Handelsblatt. A third-party contributor translated and adapted the article from the original. In case of discrepancy, the original will prevail.

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