CEO clarna, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, sets before the biggest test: IPO

London – after 20 years of the role of the Carry Director, Sebastian Siematkowski intends to face his most difficult test, because the financial company is preparing for the hit in New York.

43-year-old Siematkowski was a co-founder of Karyry in 2005 together with other Swedish entrepreneurs Niklas Adalberthem and Victor Jacobsson to accept traditional banks and credit card companies with more online user-friendly online payment.

Today, clarna is synonymous with “buy now, pay later”-a method of payment that allows people to buy things and either postpone the payment by the end of the month or pay their purchases in relation to a series of equal monthly installments.

But while Siematkowski grew up the clarine in the power of fintech, his entrepreneurial journey was not without challenges – before growing competition from rivals such as rivals such as PayPalIN Confirm AND Block“Afterpay, up to 85% of the valuation drop.

Nevertheless, Siematkowski did not take on these challenges, and the open co -founder is not shy to question criticism of IPO, which could appreciate this for $ 15 billion.

“Regardless of all cycles and everything that we went through with the company, at any time I ask myself if I still think that clarna can become the next Google In terms of size, we can become hundreds of billions of dollars of the company or trillion dollars, “Siematkowski said CNBC.” I am still crazy enough to think that it is possible to achieve. “

Once, honey from the time of the pandemic worth $ 46 billion in the financing round managed by SoftbankBright The valuation dropped by 85% in 2022 to $ 6.7 billion As growing inflation and interest rates, investors’ mood in the high growth of technology companies.

But the company tried to rebuild this eroded value in the coming years.

Klara earns mainly on fees that charge buyers for the provision of payment services, in addition to income from financing plans containing interest and advertising revenues.

Financials disclosed in the IPO application shows that Klarana reported revenues in the amount of USD 2.8 billion last year, which is an increase of 24% year on year and net profit of USD 21 million-compared to a net loss of $ 2,44 million in 2023.

Klara’s freezing in employment in 2023 because it looked like an exacerbation of costs. The next year, the company said that there was AI Chatbot performing work of 700 full -time customer service tasks.

The general director of Klarany then said in August that his company was able to reduce its overall working force to 3800 out of 5000 thanks to the use of artificial intelligence in areas such as marketing and customer service.

“Just not hiring … The company is getting smaller,” said Reuters News Agency, adding that Jobs disappear due to exhaustion, not dismissals.

Asked by CNBC about his views on artificial intelligence nervous that they causedSiemiatkowski suggested that he “finished apologizing”, repeated the comments of Marek Zuckerberg about the meta CEO “20-year error“Obtaining responsibility for issues for which he thought that his company was not guilty.

Sobbling, Siematkowski added that artificial intelligence “can do many works today that people do – but I do not want to be one of the leaders of the technology that stands on stage and says:” Don’t worry, there will be new work “because I don’t know what these new works are.”

“I just want to be transparent and honest with what I think and I would prefer to be open because I know what these people say, technology leaders when they are not on public stages, and they don’t say exactly the same things,” said CNBC in October.

Last week, Klarana announced a relationship with Dordash Offer flexible payment options in the American food supply application. However, the move met with the looseness of Internet users, who said that he was risking sididing of fighting consumers with a greater debt.

One user x He published a meme By showing personal financial expert Dave Ramsey with the signature: “What do you mean, you have $ 11,000 in” Dordash’s Debt “.

Siemiatkowski He started to x To defend this movement, saying that Klara “offers many payment methods”, including the possibility of immediately paying or postponing payments by the end of the month in addition to monthly installments.

“Dordash offers many products outside of food!” The head of Klary said about X in response to criticism. “I know that we are best known for salary in 4. But you can also use a credit card at Doordash.”

In 2022, a general entrepreneur He emphasized that his company was “better” than credit cards and “extremely resistant to recession” after the company released 10% of the workforce.

When clarna approaches the debut on the stock exchange, investors will probably examine their achievements and whether he is still the right person to run a company in the long run.

Lena Hackelöer, general director of Startech Startup Bite Payments, is someone who worked under the leadership of Siematkowski, working in the company for seven years in 2010–2017 in various marketing functions.

She expressed the admiration of the co-founder of Klarar-and pushed the suggestions that leadership began to work well in the pandemic era.

“I never thought that they had been wrong, which was somehow reported,” said Hackelöer in CNBC in a November interview. “I think they just focused on growth – because there was a direction that investors are given.”

Like other technology companies, clarna has increased significantly in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2020, the company increased the size of gross goods or the total value of all sales processed by its platform 46% year on year, up to $ 53 billion.

The company also defeated hundreds of new employees to use and expand the possibility that it saw an impact on blocking the government on consumers’ behavior and acceleration of e-commerce acceptance at that time.

“I think that someone who is a bit reasonable is not something that you take carefree, right?” Carry CEO said, referring to releases. “This is a difficult decision. It makes you cry. I cried.”

However, Siematkowski was in favor of the decision to dismiss employees: “I felt like I had a duty to my voters, all these parties, the company, and I think that at that moment it was a necessary decision.”

Clarna at the beginning of this month submitted a prospectus to the list on the New York Stock Exchange. The company has not yet established the date when it is public or valued the action.

If it succeeds, the result may catapult the net value of Siematkowski and other shareholders, including Sequoia Capital, Silver Lake, Mubadala Investment Company and the Canadian investment council of the pension plan.

Sequoia is the largest butcher shareholder with 22% share. Siematkowski is the second largest, having 7% of the activity.

A positive IPO result would also increase the value of Klaarn’s employees’ rates and potentially increase morale after a stormy several years for the company.

“This is a balance between finding fair value for existing investors who want to pay the payment, and new investors looking for participation in clarna at a fair price. Crossing the company can lead to a decrease in the valuation in the future. During its undestration it may mean that the money was left on a table for those leaving,” said the pan.