Dear Klarna friends,
Believe it or not, today marks Klarna’s 15th birthday and it brings some mixed emotions for me. Alongside nostalgia and pride in our journey so far, and excitement for the future, I’m heavy with concern for the situation the world is currently in.
Instead of the planned celebrations together in our offices this week, Klarna’s employees are currently spread out at 3,000 home offices in the 17 different countries Klarna operates. I am extremely proud of their resilience, dedication, and passion they show everyday to give Klarna’s customers the best possible shopping experience.
I am equally impressed with all of our retail partners. For some of them this is a really challenging time but they will persevere and adapt, for others they see new demand for their products. All 200,000+ have one thing in common, they are currently working extremely hard in difficult circumstances.
To Klarna’s 85 million customers around the world, I would like to send a big thank you. Thank you for believing in us and appreciating what we do, this is really just the beginning of the adventure. But more importantly, thank you for how you are responding to a world that’s challenging us in new ways we never before imagined. Thank you for standing together and helping those who need you. And thank you for spreading joy and optimism, for keeping on fighting despite losing jobs or even loved ones. It will get better.
This is not the birthday celebration we envisioned. We will do this at a later time and closely involve you our consumers and retail partners. But it’s still a moment to reflect on how far we have come since me and my two co-founders first pitched the idea back in 2005. So we’ve put together a montage of Klarna’s history to show where we’ve come from and where we are now. Some of the pictures are a reminder to me that not everything was better before…
Take care of each other!
Sebastian, CEO of Klarna