Henrik Torstensson's Weblog

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…

Stockholm-based mobile games developer/publisher MAG Interactive released its financial results for its Q1 2023 today. The company had 97 million SEK in revenue for Q1 (which is a little less than €40 million per year). Based on improvements in three key titles (Wordzee, QuizDuel and Tile Mansion), the company increased its marketing spend with 252…

Consumer behavior changes slowly. According to Svensk Dagligvaruhandel (reported by Breakit, in Swedish) online sales of groceries dropped 20 % last year in Sweden. That obviously seems like a people “changing back” behavior as the covid pandemic ended. But as interesting is that only 4.5 % of total grocery sales in Sweden were online, especially…

As a venture investor, and previously as a CEO raising capital, the pitch deck is a central document to learn about a startup. Often it is the first introduction to a company, so saying it is important is to understate it. The advice from venture capitalists on the content and structure of a good deck…