[bogomipz]

A year ago this company raised $639 million. Additionally, the article states the company makes it's money from fees paid by retailers:

>"Instead of charging consumers interest, Klarna takes a fee from the retailers."

This suggests they're not subsidizing their customers with VC money in the same way that cheap Uber rides did. Can anyone say why they are they trying to raise more money almost exactly a year after raising the kind of money they did? Are they simply trying to squirrel away some rainy day money or did they burn through most of that $639 million already? If the latter why is this such a capital heavy business if the model is based on retailers paying fees to the company?

[throwaway65471]

This is a good question and even as an employee i do not know. The company made a few acquisitions (google them), then there was the huge USA launch where they spent lot of marketing money (super bowl ad, chicago bulls etc.) They also started a lot of projects / markets to see what works.

The sad part is, unlike silicon valley the employee salaries were still quite low, they do not discuss plans with the employees, they only hire juniors and management does not share any numbers / overall plans with the employees. Even after last round of layoffs we were told that all is good. Now, we hear that company is seeking fresh funding after raising more than half a billion last year!

[bogomipz]

Honestly that sounds like a pretty bad place to work then. If you wanted to be kept in the dark and paid poorly, you can get that at any big corporation and with far more stability.

[atwood22]

Can you get your equity wiped out at a big corporation? Probably not!

[moogly]

> Additionally, the article states the company makes it's money from fees paid by retailers

They operated their own debt collection firm until March 2021 called Segoria. They liked to keep quiet about that.

From the horse's mouth: https://youtu.be/ZasUQuoCw2Q?t=1887

They of course still use debt collection but outsource it now.

[bogomipz]

Interesting. Also from your link they outsource their customer service too. So you've go three separate companies, the bank, the debt collection agency and the customer service. It sounds like bad customer experience waiting to happen.

[Nextgrid]

It's probably still a "growth & engagement" operation where most of the money is pissed away in marketing and building an engineering playground to solicit further funding rounds.