Ant Financial invests in Klarna

Klarna, a global payments and shopping provider, today announced investment from Ant Financial Services Group, owner and operator of payments and lifestyle platform Alipay.

Ant Financial, a payment affiliate of Alibaba Group, has acquired a minority stake in Klarna, in a move that strengthens the partnership between Ant Financial and Klarna. The enhanced collaboration is set to help the two companies bring more innovative and convenient financial services to consumers worldwide.

This investment supports the further development of the strategic cooperation of the two companies, bringing more of Klarna’s innovative solutions to consumers and merchants within the broader Alibaba ecosystem. It will deepen ongoing collaborations between Klarna and Alipay, which currently enables shoppers at AliExpress, the global retail online marketplace of Alibaba Group, to use Klarna’s popular ‘Pay later’ solution across multiple markets.

Sebastian Siemiątkowski, CEO at Klarna, says:

“At the heart of this cooperation between Klarna and Alipay is a shared ambition of innovating truly superior shopping experiences and creating destinations of inspiration for consumers across the world. Alipay, and the wider Alibaba Group, have truly set the global pace on retail innovation and the app economy. We are delighted in this confidence shown in Klarna in defining the future of payments and shopping and are very much looking forward to working together further in the future.”

At present, Klarna is powering over 200,000 retailers and e-commerce platforms globally including AliExpress, H&M, ASOS, Expedia Group, IKEA, Farfetch, Adidas, Spotify, Samsung and Nike. In 2019, Klarna added over 75,000 new merchants and as a strategic growth partner is driving millions of referrals and traffic each month from owned channels to these retailers, as consumers are actively seeking where they can shop with Klarna. Equally, Klarna now has an 85 million strong consumer base who choose to shop with Klarna as loyalty and preference grows across touchpoints – online and instore.

The recently launched shopping experience in the Klarna app allows US consumers to shop with Klarna anywhere online. Klarna now has more than 200,000 more monthly app downloads than the nearest US competitor.

Numis acted as exclusive financial adviser to Klarna.