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Klarna Valued at Nearly $20 Billion in Strong NYSE Debut

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Klarna made a powerful entrance on the New York Stock Exchange, with shares surging 30% in their debut to $52, well above the IPO price of $40. The rally valued the Swedish buy-now, pay-later (BNPL) fintech at $19.65 billion, capping a long-awaited U.S. listing and signaling renewed momentum in the IPO market.

The company and its investors sold 34.3 million shares, raising $1.17 billion for selling shareholders including Sequoia Capital and Heartland A/S, while the IPO itself valued Klarna at $15.1 billion. CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski, who owns about 7% of the firm, did not sell shares.

The listing is the largest by a Swedish company since Spotify in 2018 and leads a busy IPO week, with seven firms — including the Winklevoss twins’ crypto exchange Gemini — preparing to go public in New York. Analysts say Klarna’s successful debut could encourage more fintechs to test the market after years of tariff-driven volatility and stalled listings.

Founded in 2005, Klarna helped pioneer BNPL, allowing customers to pay for online purchases in installments. Once valued at $45.6 billion in 2021, Klarna saw its worth slump to $6.7 billion in 2022 amid inflation and higher rates. The IPO signals a rebound as investors reassess BNPL’s role in a consumer market strained by sticky inflation and slowing income growth.

Klarna’s U.S. rival Affirm holds a $29 billion valuation and reported a much higher average order value of $276, compared with Klarna’s $101. While Affirm targets larger purchases with longer financing, Klarna has focused on short-term, smaller-ticket loans.

Chief Financial Officer Niclas Neglén called the IPO “an opportunity for new shareholders, our 111 million consumers and others to really partake in that journey to disrupt the financial services industry.”

The IPO may act as a bellwether for BNPL’s prospects. As analyst Brian Jacobsen put it: “Klarna’s IPO will be a thermometer, showing how hot, or not, investors think BNPL will be.”

Harvey AI in Talks to Raise $250M at $5 Billion Valuation Amid Explosive Growth

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Harvey AI, a rising star in the generative AI space for legal services, is in advanced talks to raise over $250 million in new funding at a valuation of $5 billion, according to sources familiar with the matter. The round is being led by Kleiner Perkins and Coatue, with Sequoia Capital expected to increase its stake as well.

The proposed round marks a rapid jump in valuation from $3 billion just months ago, reflecting Harvey’s surging revenues and growing market dominance in the AI-for-legal sector.

Key Financial and Strategic Highlights

  • 📈 Annualized Revenue Run Rate:

    • $75 million in April 2025, up from $50 million earlier this year — a 50% increase within months.

  • 💼 Client Base:

    • Major growth fueled by partnerships with PwC and sales to in-house corporate legal teams.

  • 🧠 AI Platform:

    • Initially built on a custom OpenAI model, Harvey now integrates Anthropic and Google’s foundation models to broaden its capabilities.

  • 🧾 Core Services:

    • Document review, contract drafting, legal research, and specialized modules like M&A compliance.

Founded in 2022, Harvey has quickly risen to become one of the most prominent legal tech startups, capitalizing on the legal industry’s push toward automation, efficiency, and digital transformation.

“Harvey is proving that AI isn’t just compatible with legal work — it’s redefining the future of the legal profession,” said one person familiar with the company’s pitch, requesting anonymity.

The VC Legal Tech Gold Rush

Investor interest in Harvey reflects a broader trend:

  • 📊 Legal tech startups raised $2.1 billion globally in 2024.

  • 💰 February 2025 marked one of the highest VC investment months in U.S. legal tech history.

  • 🧑‍⚖️ Goldman Sachs estimates that up to 44% of legal work could eventually be automated — a stat that’s driving unprecedented VC confidence in legal AI platforms like Harvey.

The deal, once finalized, will deepen Kleiner Perkins’ commitment to Harvey, following its co-lead of the $80 million Series B round in December 2023.

This surge in funding highlights how generative AI is rapidly transforming even the most conservative sectors, with legal tech emerging as one of 2025’s hottest investment frontiers.

OpenAI Co-founder Sutskever’s Startup SSI in Talks for $20 Billion Valuation

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Safe Superintelligence (SSI), a startup co-founded by OpenAI’s former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, is reportedly in discussions to raise funding at a valuation of $20 billion. This would mark a significant increase from its previous $5 billion valuation during a September funding round, where it raised $1 billion from investors like Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and DST Global.

SSI’s talks come at a time when high-profile AI ventures are facing a reappraisal of their valuations following Chinese startup DeepSeek’s release of a cost-effective AI model. Despite not yet generating any revenue, SSI’s mission is to develop “safe superintelligence” that is both smarter than humans and aligned with human interests. However, much of the company’s work and approach remains under wraps, fueling intrigue among investors.

The company’s founders include Daniel Gross, previously of Apple, and Daniel Levy, a former OpenAI researcher. While SSI’s approach to AI is still not widely known, Sutskever’s reputation for groundbreaking work in AI, particularly in scaling and inference techniques, has garnered significant attention. SSI’s focus on “scaling in peace” aims to insulate progress from short-term commercial pressures, a stark contrast to the trajectory of OpenAI, which shifted to commercial products after the success of ChatGPT in 2022.

The conversation around SSI’s valuation highlights the ongoing competition in the AI space, with OpenAI in talks to potentially double its valuation to $300 billion, and rival Anthropic nearing a funding round that would value it at $60 billion.