Henrik Torstensson's Weblog

Building a startup is seeing opportunities and trying to make them come true. How you get there will be impacted by constraints on your behavior. Such constraints might be competitors’ behavior, laws and norms, capital need, access to capital, access to talent and many other things. For startups and unprofitable technology companies the access to […]

In 2022 the number of smartphones shipped globally fell 11.3 % to 1.21 billion, according to IDC. That is the lowest number since 2013 (!). The smartphone is a fantastic innovation, but it is now 15 years since the launch of the iPhone and the technology has been getting more mature for many years. Which, […]

Twitter is, according to the Wall Street Journal, looking to raise $3 billion in equity to pay back $3 billion of the most expensive loans Elon Musk took to fund his acquisition of Twitter. This out of $13 billion in total debt. Given Twitters size in revenue (reportedly $4-4.5 billion) and (lack of) profitability, $13 […]

One of the more interesting comments on the current layoffs and ‘overhiring’ at the larger technology companies comes from Ben Thompson at Stratechery (paid newsletter). The companies weren’t adding new staff that much faster, but what happened was that their current employees were not leaving at the same pace as before. The chain of events […]

Spotify became the latest large technology company to annouce layoffs (about 6 % of ca 9,800 employees). The percentage size of layoffs is in the same range as Microsoft/Alphabet, but a bit lower than the ca 10 % layoffs done by other billion dollar revenue companies that have low profitability or are unprofitable (e.g. Saleforce, […]

The brilliance in the Internet’s enabling of niche content to become global due to low cost distribution and large platforms like YouTube, Spotify (in addition to the good old web) has is disruptive. Lately I’ve been listening more to such a niche type of content, the show Acquired, which focuses on the stories behind startups, […]

An interesting article about Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, based on interviews with Twitter insiders. According to CNBC the number of Twitter employees is now about 1,300, down from about 7,500 before the acquisition. Elon Musk says it is about 2,300 (both numbers exclude contractors, of which there are many not least moderation/support). Other reports […]

Alphabet became the latest of the major technology companies to announce layoffs of ca 12,000 employees (or about 6 % of total staff). This followed Microsoft’s announcement of cuts of 10,000 employees earlier this week. The situation of the very profitable technology majors are very different from the situations of unprofitable startups and scaleups doing […]

The fact that there seem to be more acquisition offers of publicly traded tech/gaming stocks than IPOs in the Nordics is definitely saying something current sentiment. Playtika giving an indicative, non-binding offer to acquire Angry Birds-maker Rovio of €9.05 per share is a sign of this. I have no opinion on if that is a […]

There are many ways to invest in private companies. Early-stage venture capital is one way to do it (and the best way for a very specific type of companies). But even within early-stage venture capital there are different approaches. At Alliance VC we have our point of view on how it is best done. We […]