The company put its IPO plans on hold in April amid the market turmoil caused by new U.S. tariffs. It is now considering reviving them after seeing other companies’ strong debuts, Bloomberg reported Thursday (July 31), citing unnamed sources.
The deliberations are ongoing, and no final decision has been made, according to the report.
Reached by PYMNTS, a Klarna spokesperson declined to comment on the report.
Klarna announced March 14 that it filed for an IPO with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company had announced earlier, in November, that it confidentially submitted a draft registration statement for an IPO with the SEC.
In a letter included with the March filing, Klarna CEO and co-founder Sebastian Siemiatkowski wrote that the company’s offerings, including its buy now, pay later (BNPL) feature, had garnered nearly 100 million people.
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PYMNTS reported at the time that the company’s filing spotlighted its app at the center of an expanding pay-later ecosystem, with 45 references to that ecosystem and Klarna’s place in it.
It was also reported in March that Klarna’s filing fostered hopes that the years-long drought in high-profile tech listings may be at an end.
By April 4, however, it was reported that Klarna was one of several technology and FinTech companies that paused their activities related to IPOs amid the stock market fall and investor uncertainty caused by the announcement of new U.S. tariffs.
Klarna had planned to start its IPO roadshow the following week.
PYMNTS reported at the time that two other companies in the BNPL space — Affirm and Sezzle — had seen their shares drop 44% and 35%, respectively, since the beginning of the year. They had also seen double-digit drops in one day alone after the tariff announcement.
There was a rebound in the FinTech market in June when Chime’s shares soared 38% on their first day of trading.
By late June, it was reported that Klarna was preparing to go public again by boosting its banking efforts, branching out from BNPL and launching new products.
