Luzana Costa & Niklas Adalberth: Building for Impact at Scale l Africa/Week 2025

Quick Overview

Niklas Adalberth, co-founder of Klarna and founder of the Norrsken Foundation, emphasizes that building a company focused on positive impact, such as through technology addressing real-world problems like climate or mental health, requires sustained, focused hard work, contrasting the Silicon Valley model where impact is often secondary to valuation.

Key Points: Niklas Adalberth co-founded Klarna, one of Europe's largest fintech companies, which became a unicorn shortly after its founding in 2015. Adalberth left Klarna to dedicate his time and wealth to the Norrsken Foundation, which operates co-working spaces globally, including Brussels and Barcelona. He describes his initial goal with Klarna as building a unicorn, which he achieved, but realized that chasing valuation without impact was not motivating. Adalberth believes that positive impact (e.g., on climate, health, education) and profit are not contradictory, but must be intentionally combined in the business model. He notes that operating in Africa (like Rwanda) presents different challenges than Silicon Valley, often involving resource constraints and a need to solve real problems rather than chasing easy valuations. The key learning is that hard work is essential, but it must be focused on solving real problems that benefit humanity and the planet, not just chasing financial returns. The failure of his initial expansion attempt into Finland taught him the importance of deeply understanding local market narratives and cultural differences.

Context: This video features an interview between Luzana Costa and Niklas Adalberth, co-founder of the major European fintech Klarna and founder of the Norrsken Foundation, during Africa/Week 2025. The discussion centers on Adalberth's transition from building a highly successful commercial venture (Klarna) to focusing on impact-driven work through the Norrsken Foundation, contrasting the motivations and challenges of building businesses in different global contexts like Silicon Valley versus Africa.