E-Commerce-Unternehmen ziehen weiter Investorengelder an. Der schwedische Zahlungsabwickler Klarna, seit Oktober unser Hauptsponsor, hat am Freitag eine kapitale Finanzierungsrunde von 115 Mio. Euro (bzw. 155 Mio. Dollar) bekanntgegeben, wie sie sonst allenfalls bei einem Börsengang üblich ist.
Techcrunch klärt über die Hintergründe auf (“This Is The Public Financing Of Twelve Years Ago”):
"On Friday, a little-known Swedish ecommerce payments company called Klarna raised a massive $155 million round from DST and General Atlantic. Its previous round was a scant $9 million in May, 2010 when it was discovered by Sequoia Capital and superstar partner Michael Moritz took a board seat (yes, he actually flies to Sweden for the board meetings). “This is the public financing of twelve years ago,” Moritz tells me, “it is just done privately.”"
Klarna could have gone public. It is on track to double revenues to about $120 million this year, CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski estimates. And it’s been profitable on a pre-tax basis since 2005. It has 600 employees and clears $2.5 billion worth of e-commerce transaction through its payment system.
The company makes it easier for consumers to complete e-commerce transactions by allowing them to pay after they receive the goods instead of when they order them. It solves the abandoned shopping cart problem. Using sophisticated machine learning and other techniques, Klarna tries to figure out the risk of somebody not paying. It essentially extends consumers credit by paying the merchants. Then the consumers pay Klarna. “We want to separate buying from paying,” says Siemiatkowski. “Paying creates a lot of friction."
Mehr in dem lesenswerten Techcrunch-Artikel.
Gerade der Infrastrukturbereich (von Payment bis Fulfillment) wird künftig wieder spannend, da der E-Commerce-Markt inzwischen ein Volumen erreicht hat, der ihn zunehmend attraktiver macht für neue Anbieter mit innovativen Lösungen.