About

Klarna is a Swedish fintech company and one of the largest "buy now, pay later" service providers globally. The company's core offering is its "four installments" service, which enables its customers to split their purchases into four interest-free payments. Founded in Sweden in 2005, the company entered the United States market in 2015 and peaked in valuation at $45.6 billion during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2025, Klarna's partnership with DoorDash, which allowed customers to pay for food deliveries in installments, became a subject of memes and viral discussions online.

History

In 2005, Swedish entrepreneurs Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Niklas Adalberth and Victor Jacobsson founded Klarna, a financial service provider. The company primarily focused on providing invoicing and payment solutions for e-commerce, allowing shoppers to buy goods and pay after delivery.

In 2008, the company expanded to Norway, Finland, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands. In 2011, nearly 40 percent of all e-commerce sales in Sweden were serviced by Klarna.

In September 2015, Klarna launched in the United States. In 2019, the company launched its "Pay in 4" model, allowing customers to split their purchases into four equal payments made every two weeks.

In June 2021, Klarna reached a market valuation of $45.6 billion.^[1]

In 2024, Klarna partnered^[2] with Uber to service delayed and split payments for its Uber and Uber Eats apps. In March 2025, the company entered a similar agreement with DoorDash. The news inspired multiple memes on social media during that period.^[3]

In December 2024, Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski revealed that the company "stopped hiring last year," having replaced 700 employees at the company in February 2024. In May 2025, Siemiatkowski told Bloomberg that the company was hiring humans once again, admitting that overimplementation of AI led to "lower quality."

In April 2025, Karna put its plans for a United States IPO on hold, citing market instability caused by the 2025 tariff war.

On May 19th, 2025, Financial Times^[4] reported that Karna's net losses amounted to $99 million in the first quarter of 2025, up from $47 a year earlier, with its customer credit losses having risen to $136 million.

Online Presence

Use In Memes

Memes about the company have been going since the introduction of its "Pay in 4" delayed payment model in 2019.

For instance, on December 13th, 2019, X^[5] user @liam_donnelkly16 made one of the earliest humorous posts mentioning the service, writing, "Will the NHS take klarna?" The post (shown below) garnered over 14,000 reposts and 53,000 likes in six years.

Humorous about the company, alongside competitors Afterpay and Affirm, have often been based on people making purchases that would normally be difficult for them to afford.

For example, on January 19th, 2024, X^[6] user @SharloHTX posted a joke that garnered over 16,000 reposts and 230,000 likes in one year (shown below).

In 2025, the company went viral on social media in March and then again in May, first due to the news of its partnership with the food delivery service DoorDash, and second due to the news of Klarna's multi-million-dollar net losses that many users linked to that partnership.

2025 DoorDash Partnership

DoorDash Klarna Payments refers to memes and discussions about the American food delivery and takeout service DoorDash partnering with Klarna to provide food delivery with a buy-now, pay-later scheme that allows consumers to pay for their food in installments. The move sparked controversy and discourse online after it was announced in late March 2025, with many people viewing taking on debt to buy food as an indicator of financial instability. Online, the news drew comparisons with the film The Big Short in which banks bundled risky loans and sold them as safe investments, creating a financial bubble that eventually collapsed when borrowers defaulted (known as the 2008 financial crisis).

2025 Net Losses Report

On May 19th, 2025, On May 19th, 2025, Financial Times reported that Karna's net losses amounted to $99 million in the first quarter of 2025, up from $47 a year earlier, with its customer credit losses having risen to $136 million.

On that day, the official X^[7] account for the publication tweeted out the article, with the post garnering over 12.8 million views, 1,300 reposts and 2,400 likes in three days. Additional posts reporting the same news by @NewsWire_US and @Dexerto garnered over 15.4 million views and 32.2 million views on X,^[8][9] respectively.

The news was followed by an influx of jokes that linked the losses to Klarna entering partnerships with DoorDash and Uber Eats and surmised that customers who financed food deliveries were also more likely to fail to pay back.

For example, on May 20th, 2025, X^[10] user @0xgaut posted a The Big Short caption meme that garnered over 2,700 reposts and 55,000 likes in two days (shown below).

On May 22nd, 2025, X^[11] user @puffpuffpowa posted a You Guys Are Getting Paid? meme based on the news that received over 11,000 reposts and 210,000 likes in one day (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References