E100: Stripe’s $65b valuation, Klarna’s $20b IPO?!, Klarna replaces 700 humans w/ OpenAI, Figure(robots) raise $675m from Bezos/others, Deel acquires Zavvy | Pre-IPO Stock Market Update – Mar 1, 2024

This Week in Pre-IPO Stocks

00:11 | Stripe’s $65b valuation
- Online payment infrastructure company
- $1b buyback/tender at a $65b valuation; Sequoia and Goldman participated alongside Stripe itself
- Stripe has $59.8b implied secondary market valuation prior to this announcement; $65b valuation is +8.7% increase
- Second private company buyback in last few months; ByteDance $5b buyback from employees in Dec 2023 at $268b valuation
02:00 | Klarna’s $20b IPO?!
- IPO rumored for 2025 at $20b
- Klarna has $8.3b implied secondary market valuation; $20b is a +141%
- 2023: $2.2b revenue (+22% vs ’22), $1.1b gross profit (+60% vs ’22), 50% gross profit margin, -32% in consumer credit losses vs ’22, -31% reduction in sales/marketing expenses vs ‘22
- $20b valuation is 9x revenue multiple, I can see it based on these performance results
04:20 | Klarna replaces 700 humans w/ OpenAI
- Klarna implemented customer service solution using OpenAI, replaced 700 humans customer service reps with AI
- $40m annual profit improvement resulting from AI customer service solution
- 2.3m chats, 66% of all customer service inquiries
- Matched human-level customer satisfaction
- Increased accuracy by 25%, reducing repeat inquiries
- Resolved customer issues in 2 mins vs humans at 11 mins
- Operational in 23 markets (35 languages)
06:26 | Figure(robots) raise $675m from Bezos/others
- Humanoid robots that can complete tasks traditionally done by humans
- Jeff Bezos, Nvidia, Microsoft, OpenAI, others invested
- $2.6b valuation
- BMW is customer, robots for automotive manufacturing
07:50 | Deel acquires Zavvy
- HR management tech company helping businesses recruit and compliantly manage international employees
- Zavvy is a Munich-based AI "people development"; specializing in personalized career progression, training, and performance management tools
- Acquisition amount not disclosed
- Deel seeks to expand HR services, AI solutions
- Deel has 25,000 business customers; e.g. Reddit, Shopify, Klarna, Nike, and Red Bull
- Deel $400m in annual recurring revenue, profitable since Sep 2022, $600m in cash on balance sheet
- $13.2b implied valuation based on secondary market trading, +9% from last primary round in May 2022
09:29 | Pre-IPO +0.31% for week, +1.97% for last 1yr
- Week winners: ConsenSys +16.1%, OpenAI +6.7%, Anduril +6.2%, Flexport +4.7%, Chainalysis +4.0%
- Week losers: Scale.AI -19.4%, Airtable -14.7%, Klarna -1.8%, Anthropic -1.7%, SpaceX -1.5%
-Top valuations: ByteDance $283b, SpaceX $182b, OpenAI $109b, Stripe $65b, Databricks $48b