Klarna’s chief executive has not ruled out taking the company public, while also indicating more private investment is possible to fund US expansion plans.

In August, a $460 million funding round valued the payments company at $5.5 billion - making it the most highly valued privately held FinTech in Europe.

At the TechCrunch Berlin conference this week, Sebastian Siemiatkowski commented: “I was reading an interview with Michael Moritz, who’s on our board, and he was saying that we were going to stay private forever, so I don’t know, it’s hard for me to know what’s true anymore; people are reporting different things about Klarna.”

When asked about the possibility of another round of private investment, Siemiatkowski said: “We are in a very exciting phase right now, where the US and UK is growing so fast for us... and we want to continue investing.

“So we’ll see what happens, but I wouldn’t rule it out, that one thing that could happen is raise even more money to be investing even more in growth and product delivery, and new products and services, as well as sales and marketing in the US.”

Seperately this week, Klarna announced plans to open a tech hub in Germany's capital at the beginning of next year.

This would enable the FinTech to further build out its product portfolio and services, while better serving its growing merchant and consumer base across Europe and the US.

The new site will be based in a 7,400 square metre repurposed parking garage in Berlin Mitte, housing more than 500 employees focusing on product, engineering and commercial growth - in an addition to Klarna's German offices in Munich and Linden, each with approximately 100 employees.

"This site will enable us to further scale our footprint in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and new markets, but at the same time build new products and services to solve people's shopping pain points across Europe and the US," stated Siemiatkowski. "We are on a very exciting journey from a pure payment provider to a global shopping ecosystem and our team in Berlin will play a decisive part to reach our ambitious goals."

Klarna currently employs over 2,500 employees in Stockholm, Los Angeles, New York, Columbus, Madrid, Brussels, London, Vienna, Amsterdam, Berlin, Linden, Munich, Oslo, Helsinki and Uppsala.

Share Story: