Stockholm, Sweden and Gauting, Germany, December 18, 2013 – The payment providers Klarna AB (“Klarna”) from Sweden and SOFORT AG (“SOFORT”) from Germany today announced that they will join forces. Klarna is acquiring SOFORT from the majority shareholder Reimann Investors. Both companies will continue to offer their products side by side and operate on stand-alone basis.
Klarna and SOFORT combined will have a 10 percent share of the USD 100 billion e-commerce market in which they operate. Klarna is a leading online payment provider in the Nordic countries, and SOFORT is a leading player in Germany and Austria. Together they will offer their solutions in 14 European countries. The combined group will have 25 million users and partnerships with more than 50 percent of all German online merchants. In total, the group will work together with 43,000 online merchants.
The transaction is subject to approval by the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority.
Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO and co-founder of Klarna, said:
“We are delighted to be given the opportunity to work together with the exceptional team at SOFORT. Together we have an incredible opportunity to provide the most trusted payment solution to our merchants and make it simpler and safer for consumers to shop online.”
Dr. Gerrit Seidel, CEO of SOFORT, said:
“SOFORT and Klarna supplement each other in our service offerings as well as in our growth ambitions. Together we are providing online merchants the opportunity to offer both popular payment methods out of one hand in Germany and to develop further product innovations. We also look forward to continuing to foster our position as an independent, banking-friendly payment solution.”
Dr. Michael Riemenschneider, representative of the previous majority shareholder Reimann Investors and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of SOFORT, said:
“We are very pleased with this combination, as Klarna and SOFORT together will become a leading European player with a footprint in 14 European countries. Both companies complement each other to the benefit of both merchants and consumers. We believe this newly established group has such an enormous potential to emerge as a leading European provider of online payments that it was a logical step for us to re-invest in this group.”
About Klarna:
Klarna provides European consumers and merchants a safe and simple way to buy and sell online. At the core of their services is the concept of payment after delivery. Buyers receive ordered goods before payment is due, similar to the experience of shopping in a store. Klarna assumes all credit and fraud risk for e-stores so that sellers can rest assured that they will always receive their money. Klarna’s vision is to enable trust and to offer a frictionless buying experience to buyers and sellers across the world. Through its one click purchase option Klarna takes the friction out of buying online, allowing merchants to see on average a 10-30% increase in sales.
Today, Klarna has over 15 million users and 15,000 merchants in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands and Austria. With 850+ employees, Klarna is based in Stockholm, Sweden and has raised $250 million in funding from investors including Sequoia Capital, DST and General Atlantic. The company has grown to $200 million in revenue.
About SOFORT:
The company started with the idea of providing online customers with a payment method that they are used to. Paying simply with their online banking details. With SOFORT Banking, this vision has become reality, since it allows all online merchants to generate more sales thanks to fair conditions.
SOFORT is the market leader in Germany. SOFORT’s payment options are available in more than 25,000 online shops and providers of e-commerce software and shop solutions in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, Poland and the UK. SOFORT has more than 2 million successful transactions every month. SOFORT’s headquarters are in Munich, Germany.
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