Klarna, founded in 2005 in Stockholm, Sweden, set out to simplify online shopping. As an early pioneer in the buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) space, Klarna built its business by offering consumers a way to purchase items online without paying upfront or using a credit card. The company provides a variety of payment solutions, including direct payments, pay-after-delivery options, and installment plans, integrated directly at checkout with online retailers and available through its app. Klarna is now a leading global payments and shopping service, delivering smarter and more flexible shopping experiences to 150 million active consumers across over 550,000 merchants in 45 countries. The company is backed by prominent investors such as Sequoia Capital, Silver Lake, Bestseller Group, Dragoneer, Permira, Visa, Ant Group, and Atomico.