5 fintechs that could IPO after Klarna

After Swedish payments group Klarna’s $17 billion initial public offering, investors are pondering which big fintech name will be the next to go public.

Klarna popped as much as 30% on the day of its New York IPO, before settling to close around 15% higher. The stock declined further to $42.92 by Friday but is still up about 7% from its IPO price of $40.

The debut demonstrated how Wall Street is becoming more welcoming of bumper fintech listings. Prior to Klarna, online trading platform eToro, stablecoin issuer Circle and crypto exchange Bullish all went public to a positive first-day reception.

Gemini, the crypto exchange founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, surged 14% in its IPO Friday.

“I think the Klarna IPO would be viewed positively by some of the other scaled-up vendors,” Gautam Pillai, head of fintech research at British investment bank Peel Hunt, told CNBC.

There’s a crowded pipeline of fintech names that could be next to IPO after Klarna. CNBC looks at which companies look the most promising.

Digital payments firm Stripe has for years been viewed as an IPO contender. Stripe has remained a private company in the 15 years since it was founded, and founders and brothers John and Patrick Collison have long resisted pressure to take the business public.

However, that doesn’t mean a stock market listing hasn’t been on Stripe’s mind. The Collisons told employees in 2023 that Stripe would decide to either go public or allow employees to sell shares via a secondary offering within the next year.

Ultimately, Stripe in January opted for a secondary share sale, valuing the company at $91.5 billion — close to its peak valuation of $95 billion, which the company achieved in 2021.

That doesn’t mean Stripe couldn’t still pursue a stock market debut further down the line. Many fintech unicorn CEOs have been keeping a close eye on Klarna’s IPO performance for signs of when will be the right moment to list.

Revolut is widely seen as a potential future fintech IPO candidate. The digital banking unicorn told CNBC last week that it recently gave employees the chance to sell shares on the secondary market at a whopping $75 billion valuation, placing it above some major U.K. banks by market value.

“As part of our commitment to our employees, we regularly provide opportunities for them to gain liquidity,” a Revolut spokesperson told CNBC at the time. “An employee secondary share sale is currently in process, and we won’t be commenting further until it is complete.”

The secondary round buys Revolut some time to remain private for longer while still offering staff the chance to exit some of their holdings. At the same time, though, it now makes Revolut one of the world’s most valuable private fintech firms.

As to where Revolut lists, for now the U.S. appears the likeliest location. Co-founder and CEO Nikolay Storonsky has spoken candidly about his preference to list in the U.S. due to issues with London’s IPO market. Last year, he told the 20VC podcast that it was “just not rational” to go public in the U.K.

Having recently reached a $5.9 billion valuation in a secondary share sale, British digital bank Monzo is another contender for the public markets.

A report surfaced earlier this year from Sky News that said Monzo had lined up bankers to work on an IPO that could take place as early as the first half of 2026.

However, in a fireside discussion moderated by CNBC at SXSW London, Monzo CEO TS Anil said that an IPO is “not the thing we’re focused on right now” — it’s worth noting though that this was back in June.

“The thing we’re focused on is scale the business, continue to grow it, double it again, reach more customers, build more products, continue to drive great economic outcomes on the back of that,” Anil said at the time.

Anil wouldn’t comment on where Monzo would list if it were to IPO, but he stressed the firm was “deeply committed” to being globally headquartered in London. 

Monzo’s rival neobank Starling Bank has reportedly been considering an initial public offering in the U.S. as part of expansion plans there.

On Thursday, Bloomberg reported that Starling had hired Jody Bhagat, former president of global banking at software firm Personetics Technologies, to lead the growth of its Engine technology unit in the U.S.

Starling was not immediately available to comment when asked by CNBC about its listing plans.

Last year, Starling’s CEO Raman Bhatia talked up the bank’s plans to expand globally via Engine, a software platform that Starling sells to other companies so they can set up their own digital banks.

“I am very bullish about this approach around internationalization of what is the best of Starling — the proprietary tech,” Bhatia said during a fireside chat at the Money 20/20 conference moderated by CNBC.

Starling was last privately valued at £2.5 billion ($3.4 billion) in a 2022 funding round. However, reports indicate the firm is looking to fetch a valuation of £4 billion in an upcoming secondary share sale.

Though a lesser known name, Bulgaria-founded fintech firm Payhawk also has IPO ambitions.

The spend management platform was valued at $1 billion in 2022 and saw revenue surge 85% year-over-year in 2024 to 23.4 million euros ($27.4 million).

“We’re definitely seeing the IPO window open,” Payhawk CEO and co-founder Hristo Borisov told CNBC in an interview earlier this month. However, he stressed that “we are looking at more of a five-year horizon there.”

“If you look at the majority of the IPOs, the majority of those IPOs are companies with $400 million to $500 million-plus ARR [annual recurring revenue],” Borisov said. “That’s our goal.”

There are other fintechs that look like potential IPO contenders further down the line — but the trajectory looks less clear.

Blockchain firm Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse told CNBC in January last year that the company explored markets outside the U.S. for its IPO due to an aggressive crypto enforcement regime under ex-Securities and Exchange Commission chief Gary Gensler.

That could change now thanks to President Donald Trump’s pro-crypto stance. Garlinghouse said last year though that Ripple had put any plans for an IPO on hold. The startup was most recently valued at $15 billion.

Germany’s N26 is another potential IPO contender. The digital bank was valued at $9 billion in a 2021 funding round.

However, it has faced some setbacks. N26 co-founder Valentin Stalf recently stepped down as CEO after facing pressure from investors over regulatory failings.