ago 2005 founder sebastian siemiatkowski niklas adalberth victor jacobsson headquarters stockholm sweden number of locations 11 area served sweden finland norway denmark germany austria netherlands switzerland belgium france uk italy spain poland hungary slovakia czech republic and us . key people sebastian siemiatkowski ceo michael moritz board member revenue 319.4 million usd 2014 number of employees approx . 1400 march 2016 website www.klarna.com klarna is a swedish e commerce company that provides payment services for online storefronts . their core service is to assume stores claims for payments and handle customer payments thus eliminating the risk for seller and buyer . klarna allows users to pay with simply an email address billing the customer later and paying the retailer in the meantime . their business model thus differs from that of other online payment companies which collect payment from the customer immediately and then forward the money to the retailer . about 40 % of all e commerce sales in sweden goes through klarna . 1 the company has more than 1400 employees most of them working at the headquarters in stockholm . in 2014 the company handled about 10 billion in online sales . 2 contents 1 history 2 technology 3 market 4 competitors 5 offices 6 references 7 further reading history edit the three founders sebastian siemiatkowski niklas adalberth and victor jacobsson participated in the stockholm school of economics annual entrepreneurship award in 2005 with their idea on how to provide consumers and merchants with safer and simpler online shopping payment methods . however their idea was not received with enthusiasm and their entry was among the last in the competition . despite this they decided to found klarna in the middle of 2005 and started operations in sweden . citation needed 3 in the end of 2007 venture capital firm investment ab resund invested in the company . three years later klarna started selling their services in norway finland and denmark . klarna also started providing services in germany and the netherlands in 2010 and in may the same year san francisco based sequoia capital entered as investors . during 2010 klarna increased their revenues by over 80 % to 54m 400m sek . 4 in the early 2011 the british newspaper the telegraph listed klarna as one of europe s 100 most promising young tech companies . 5 in 2011 growth equity firm general atlantic led a 155m investment round joined by dst global and general atlantic s managing director anton levy joined the board of directors . 6 7 in may 2011 klarna acquired israeli company analyzd with business activity on markets in europe israel and the united states . analyzd specialise in risk management and online payments and its founders previously worked for paypal . 4 klarna began offering services in austria and sweden in 2012 and in 2013 klarna and german sofort ag merged after klarna acquired sofort banking from the majority shareholder reimann investors . both companies would continue to offer their products side by side and operate on a stand alone basis . in 2015 klarna had more than 45m users and some 65 000 online merchants have so far hired it to run their checkouts . klarna launched in the united states in september 2015 and the us has become its principal focus for future growth . 2 8 that year minister of enterprise and innovation mikael damberg dubbed klarna one of sweden s five unicorns by which he meant startup companies that had succeeded in growing and attract international investments . the other four companies were spotify mojang skype and king . 9 as of 2016 update klarna is valued at over 2 billion . 10 at money20 20 europe held in copenhagen in april 2016 co founder and ceo sebastian siemiatkowski told sequoia capital partner mike moritz that he had no plans to take the company public . 11 technology edit klarna s code base is written in erlang a programming language designed by ericsson designed for highly parallel scalable applications . 12 market edit klarna operates locally in 18 countries ; sweden finland norway denmark germany austria netherlands switzerland belgium france u.k. italy spain poland hungary slovakia the czech republic and the u.s. competitors edit some of the largest competitors with similar product portfolios in these geographies include swedish payex german billpay gmbh paypal stripe and dutch afterpay . offices edit klarna s hq 13 is based in stockholm sweden . they have several other offices including uppsala linden gauting cologne new york columbus san francisco oslo london and amsterdam . references edit http www.hui.se web e barometern.aspx a b klarna getting more ambitious . the economist . 6 february 2016 . retrieved 8 february 2016 . milne richard 2013 03 05 . a swedish take on buy now pay later . financial times . issn 0307 1766 . retrieved 2016 03 15 . a b klarna acquires analyzd to tie social to finance and payments . techcrunch . aol . 4 may 2011 . retrieved 8 april 2016 . start up 100 a z . telegraph.co.uk . 5 april 2011 . retrieved 8 april 2016 . schonfeld erick . european payment service klarna raises a whopping 155 million from dst and general atlantic . techcrunch . retrieved 16 december 2015 . klarna closes 155 million financing to accelerate global expansion . general atlantic website . retrieved 16 december 2015 . klarna about us . klarna . retrieved 2016 03 15 . olsson jeffery miriam 24 april 2015 . damberg om sveriges fem enh rningar damberg about sweden s five unicorns . www.svd.se . svenska dagbladet . retrieved 15 april 2016 . klarna is valued at 2 billion euros . ecommerce news . retrieved 2016 04 12 . gill sarah april 5 2016 . 5 things we heard about payments at money2020 . paymenteye . retrieved may 4 2016 . klarna engineering insights . klarna engineering . retrieved 8 april 2016 . contact us klarna . klarna . retrieved 2016 04 12 . further reading edit swedish payments firm klarna shifts focus to u.s. as revenues swell . reuters . fast growing klarna expanding its role easing e commerce . the columbus dispatch . how klarna got investment from sequoia capital business insider . business insider . klarna a unicorn is coming to the u.s. and going after u.s. credit card companies . techcrunch . klarna acquires analyzd to tie social to finance and payments . techcrunch . 4 may 2011 . making online shopping easier . nordstjernan . v t e payment service providers align commerce billdesk braintree chase paymentech citrus pay clinkle cng processing a s dwolla flattr instamojo klarna netbanx neteller ogone onevu oxigen services passport paydirect payoneer paypal paypoint paysafe group paytm payzone poli payments propay qiwi red dot payment skrill sleekpay square stripe timesofmoney versapay vmoney vpay wepay wirecard worldnet tps worldpay xfers xoom yandex.money yapstone category list retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title klarna & oldid 740645514 categories companies of swedenonline paymentssoftware companies of swedenhidden categories all articles with unsourced statementsarticles with unsourced statements from january 2014articles containing potentially dated statements from 2016all articles containing potentially dated statements navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages deutschnorsk bokm lsvenska edit links this page was last modified on 22 september 2016 at 10 50 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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