Hiroki Takeuchi, co-founder and CEO of GoCardless.
Zed Jameson Bloomberg Getty Images
LISBON, Portugal – Financial technology unicorns are in no rush to go public after buying today, paying company later Klarna filed for a US IPO – but they are on the lookout for signs that the market will reopen.
Last week, Klarna made a confidential filing to go public in the US, ending months of speculation about where the Swedish digital payments company would list. The timing of the IPO is still unclear, and Klarna has not yet decided on the price or number of shares to be issued to the public.
Still, the development has drawn attention from fintech circles with market observers questioning whether the move is the start of a resurgence of large fintech IPOs. Right now, it doesn’t look that way — but the founders say they’ll be watching the IPO market, looking at the price and ultimately the stock’s performance.
Hiroki Takeuchi, CEO of the online payment startup GoCardless, said last week that it was not yet time for the company to fire the initial gun on the IPO. They see the list as a milestone on the journey rather than a final destination.
“The market has been challenging over the past few years,” Takeuchi, whose GoCardless business was eventually valued at more than $2 billion, said on a CNBC-moderated panel at the Web Summit technology conference in Lisbon, Portugal.
“We need to focus on building a better business,” added Takeuchi, noting that “others will follow” once the startup gets the right. GoCardless specializes in recurring payments, transactions that come out of a consumer’s bank account on a regular basis – such as monthly donations to charity.
Lucy Liu, co-founder of cross-border payments company Airwallex, agreed with Takeuchi and said it was not the right time for Airwallex to go public. In a separate interview, Liu told CNBC what his Airwallex colleagues and CEO Jack Zhang had said – that the company expects to be “IPO ready” in 2026.
“Every company is different,” Liu said on stage, sitting next to Takeuchi on the same panel. Airwallex is more focused on being the best at solving friction in global cross-border payments, he said.
The IPO is a destination on the company’s trajectory — but not the final milestone, according to Liu. “We are constantly talking to our investors’ shareholders,” he said, adding that it would change “when the time is right.”
‘Stars aligning’ for fintech IPOs
One thing is for sure, though – analysts are more optimistic about the prospects for fintech IPOs now than ever before.
“We narrowed down the five handles to open the (IPO) window, and I think the stars are aligned in terms of macro, interest rates, politics, no election, volatility,” Navina Rajan, senior research analyst at private markets. data company PitchBook, told CNBC.
“It’s definitely in a better place, but at the end of the day, we don’t know what’s going to happen, there’s a new president in the US,” Rajan said. “It will be interesting to see the timing of the IPO and also the price.”
Fintech companies have raised about 6.2 billion euros ($6.6 billion) in venture capital since the start of the year through Oct. 30, according to PitchBook data.
Jaidev Janardana, CEO and co-founder of British digital bank Zopa, told CNBC that an IPO is not an immediate priority for the company.
“Honestly, it’s not the most important thing for me,” Janardana told CNBC. “I think we continue to be fortunate to have supportive, long-term shareholders who also support future growth.”
He said that the private market is still the most accommodating place to build a tech business focused on investing.
However, Zopa’s CEO added that he sees signs pointing to a better IPO market in the next few years, with the US likely to open in 2025.
This means Europe is becoming more open to IPOs happening next year, according to Janardana. He didn’t say where Zopa was going to go public.
