Klarna Receives $155 Million Financing From DST Global and General Atlantic

Klarna, the Sweden-based European e-commerce payments solution announced today that it has received $155 million in financing. This new round came from DST Global and General Atlantic, and was supported by Sequoia Capita, who invested in the company in 2010. Already today, Klarna handles over $2.5 billion worth of transactions annually for its 14.000 connected merchants in in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Germany and the Netherlands. The company announced it will use this funding to hire more talent and expand to more regions.

Klarna has exploded in growth since the three co-founders began operations in 2005. Today, they employ over 600 people, and the company has doubled revenues in 2011. Sebastian Siemiatkowski, co-founder and CEO of Klarna announced with their funding that “Over 40% of transactions in participating online stores are handled by Klarna, rivaling the major credit card companies as the most preferred payment method online.”

The core of Klarna’s services is the concept of after delivery payment, which lets buyers receive ordered goods before any payment is due. At the same time, Klarna assumes all credit and fraud risk for e-stores so that sellers can rest assured that they will always receive their money.

It’s always great to see this kind of money enter the region. Payments are hot right now, and Klarna offers some clever innovations to the standard model. We’ll keep you posted as Klarna takes over Europe and the rest of the world.