Klarna raised $800 million at a post-money valuation of roughly $6.7 billion — an 85% reduction from the $45.6 billion it commanded in mid-2021. Coming from one of Europe's most valuable startups, the markdown was the most vivid single data point in the venture winter.

The buy-now-pay-later company framed the raise as getting done in 'the worst set of circumstances to hit the world economy in decades.' Rising rates squeezed consumer credit models directly, and public comparables such as Affirm had already fallen sharply.

For late-stage founders, Klarna became a reference price. If a category leader with real revenue could be cut by 85%, few paper valuations from 2021 were safe. The deal accelerated a wave of internal markdowns across crossover-fund portfolios and hardened investor demand for structure and profitability over growth.