Welcome to the TechMean right home for Thursday, March 6, 2025. I'm Brian McCullough today. More signs. The Tech IPO logjam is breaking. Another cheap new AI model from China. Would you pay $20,000 a month to use an Open AI agent? The umpteenth foldable iPhone rumor, though, this time with dates,

and let me introduce you to YouTube Premium Light. Here's what you miss today in the world of

tech.

On the tech IPO watch, things are starting to shake loose. Case number one, Clarna is set to file for a $1 billion-plus IPO as soon as next week, quoting Bloomberg.

The payments business aims to price the IPO in early April, the people said, asking not to be identified as the information isn't public.

Klarna is targeting a valuation of more than $15 billion in the New York Stock Exchange

listing, the people said. Clarna is best known for its offering of buy now pay later loans,

which typically allow users to make a purchase and split their payments into equal interest-free

installments. The company has amassed 85 million customers around the world and 600,000 retail

partners. Clarna has seen estimates of its valuation fluctuate wildly

in recent years. The figure reached a high of $45.6 billion in a funding round in 2021, only to plunge to

$6.7 billion in around the following year. Analyst last year gave it an implied valuation of

around $14.6 billion based on shareholder

Chrysalis' investment's estimate of the worth of its stake. Chief Executive Officer Sebastian

Simatowski said last month the firm, known for its buy-now pay-later offerings, is exploring

an expansion into the cryptocurrency market. He posted, I give Up on social media platform X on February 8th,

saying Klarna will embrace crypto. Klarna was founded 20 years ago in Stockholm, Sweden, but in

2023, it began setting up a new UK holding company as part of its preparatory work for an eventual

public offering. The company has since refocused ahead of the planned IPO shedding businesses,

focusing on payment partners and investing in

artificial intelligence. In recent months, Klarna agreed to divest its checkout payments business for about

$520 million, while it also snapped up Lay Buy, a provider of buy-now pay later services in New Zealand,

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