Purchase now pay later (BNPL) pioneer and digital financial institution Klarna is shifting its focus from progress to short-term earnings after internet losses in 2021 hit roughly $689 million.

Whereas aiming to lift capital after slicing 10% of its workforce, Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski instructed Monetary Occasions he didn’t assume the funding would essentially be at a valuation beneath its present $46 billion, which is the best in Europe for a personal know-how agency.

See additionally: Klarna to Reduce About 700 Jobs As a consequence of Inflation, Warfare

Klarna laid off 10% of its workers  — roughly 700 individuals — because of the results of inflation and the Russia-Ukraine struggle. 

“Once we set our enterprise plans for 2022 within the autumn of final 12 months, it was a really totally different world than the one we’re in right now,” Siemiatkowski mentioned in a video assertion. “Since then, we have now seen a tragic and pointless struggle in Ukraine unfold, a shift in client sentiment, a steep enhance in inflation, a extremely unstable inventory market and a possible recession.”

Siemiatkowski instructed FT that Klarna will consider “short-term profitability over long-term new, potential investments.” 

Learn extra: Klarna Eyes Recent Capital at Decreased Valuation

Headquartered in Stockholm, Klarna was based in 2005 to make it simpler for individuals to buy on-line, and has 147 million lively customers throughout greater than 400,000 retailers in 45 nations, in line with its web site. 

Latest IPOs within the FinTech house have faltered, and one in all Klarna’s chief rivals, Affirm, which went public in January 2021, has seen an 86% drop in share worth since November.

Siemiatkowski instructed FT that he and  Klarna chair Sir Michael Moritz, associate at enterprise capital agency Sequoia Capital, are “very dedicated to the thought that there’s a advantage of being personal, and the final 12 months have proved us proper.”

Total, nonetheless, Siemiatkowski mentioned the corporate received’t utterly pivot from progress in favor of earnings.

“We don’t assume that’s proper. The long-term goal of Klarna, which is to actually disrupt retail banking and funds and monetary companies — similar to the state of affairs of Amazon a decade earlier — we expect the chance is as alive because it was six months in the past. So it’s not that the purpose has modified, it’s simply the trail there could also be affected and has to vary.”