Klarna Acquires Hero
Summary
Founded in 2015 by Adam Levene, Hero provides a social shopping platform designed to provide consumers with inspiration, advice and shoppable content produced directly from retailers’ physical stores. Its client roster now includes global brands such as Levi, rag & bone, Chloé, Harvey Nichols and shares a number of retail partners with Klarna’s existing network such as Nike and JD Sports. Founded in 2005 in Stockholm, Sweden, and led by Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO, Klarna provides a platform for people who want to shop, pay and bank and with a single brand. Over 250,000 global retail partners, including H&M, Saks, Sephora, Macys, IKEA, Expedia Group, Samsung, ASOS, Peloton, Ralph Lauren, Abercrombie & Fitch, Nike and Shein have enabled Klarna’s shopping experience online and in-store. It has been backed by Sequoia Capital since 2010 and more recently, SilverLake, Dragoneer, Bestseller Group, Permira, Ant Group, HMI Capital, TCV, NorthZone, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Merian Chrysalis Investment Company Limited, funds and accounts managed by BlackRock amongst others.