European buy now, pay later giant Klarna is getting close to nabbing a funding round backed by SoftBank, along with other investors, that would value it at over $40 billion, CNBC reported citing a source.
The size of the funding round isn’t known but it’s anticipated to be less than the company’s $1 billion raised in March, Business Insider reported.
Klarna is already one of SoftBank’s portfolio companies, according to the firm’s website, through its Vision Fund 2. Klarna has attracted notable investors including Snoop Dogg and Ant Group.
The company empowers shoppers with flexible payments solutions with retailers like Lenovo, Macy’s, Footlocker, Etsy, and thousands of other stores across multiple categories. Users can leverage buy-now-pay-later capabilities with four interest-free payments and no credit impact via the company’s instant approval process.
The company has seen some serious growth this year and has benefited from the tailwinds of the COVID-19 pandemic as the shift to digital remains prominent as ever.
In February, we reported that the company shared that it is seeing “tremendous momentum in the US, including a record 15 million customers overall to kick off 2021.” In 2020, the company more than doubled the total number of users in the United States to 15 million. More than 1 million US customers have joined Klarna each month since October 2020.
The Klarna app is also driving massive user engagement, with 3.5 million monthly active users as of the end of December, an increase of 204% year over year. The app averaged 60,000 new daily downloads in December and was among the top 10 most downloaded shopping apps in the US during Q4 2020, according to Apptopia.
The Klarna app is also driving massive user engagement, with 3.5 million monthly active users as of the end of December, an increase of 204% year over year, our reporting in February showed. The app averaged 60,000 new daily downloads in December and was among the top 10 most downloaded shopping apps in the US during Q4 2020, according to Apptopia.