General Atlantic, DST Global sell Klarna stake to Permira

Oscar Geen
21 July 2017

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Permira has acquired an equity stake in Swedish financial technology company Klarna Bank from previous venture backers for an undisclosed sum.

General Atlantic, DST Global and Klarna co-founder Niklas Adalberth will all sell equity to Permira - Adalberth will retain a part of his stake after the transaction.

Permira will hold a stake of more than 10% according to a source close to the situation. Sequoia Capital remains the largest shareholder, according to the same source.

Another source said that Sequoia and Bestseller's Anders Holch Povlsen are the main shareholders, both with stakes in excess of 10%.

Previous funding
Klarna has raised more than €300m in venture capital since it was founded in 2005, according to unquote" data.

In December 2007, Investment Öresund provided €1.5m in series-A funding to Klarna. In May 2010, US-based private equity firm Sequioa provided $9m of series-B funding. Sequoia then reinvested along with DST Global and General Atlantic to provide a $155m series-C funding round in December 2011, which the company used to acquire Sofort.

In May 2012, Atomico acquired a minority stake in Klarna from Anralk Holding, owned at 41% by Investment Oresund and 59% by Creades, for an undisclosed amount. Anralk Holding's remaining ownership in Klarna Holding stood at 6%, then valued at SEK 399m.

Investment Öresund and Creades sold their shares in the company to Partners Group in August 2013 for SEK 172m. The deal valued the company at SEK 8.2bn in total. Sequoia, General Atlantic and Atomico then invested a further €90m in March 2014.

Nordic VC Northzone, the Wellcome Trust and mutual fund Wellington Management bought an $80m stake in August 2015, reportedly valuing the company at $2.25bn.

Finally in June 2017, Visa invested in Klarna. The value was not disclosed but new equity was issued as part of the transaction.

Company
Founded in 2005, Klarna is a Stockholm-based technology company providing payments services. It now has a full banking license in Sweden. It currently serves 70,000 merchants and 60 million consumers across 18 markets. The company processes around 650,000 purchases per day and employs around 1,500 people. It recorded revenues of SEK 3.16bn in 2016, according to publicly available documents.

People
Permira – Andrew Young (principal).
Klarna Bank – Sebastian Siemiatkowski (CEO).