Henrik Torstensson's Weblog

Sifted lists the ten most active accelerators/early-stage investors in Europe in 2022. While activity is a good thing, there is a big difference between an active, high conviction early-stage investor and an accelerator/high volume-lower activity investor. Especially at seed stage. A seed-stage startup is often best served by a combination of 1-2 more active investors…

According to a tweet by Klarna co-founder and CEO Sebastian Siemakowski, the US is now Klarna’s biggest individual market ahead of Germany. Klarna is one of the largest BNPL players globally, and having the US be its biggest market is a healthy sign that expansion is working. It’s also a reminder that building startups take…

My first job was writing about computer games in the late 1990s. Therefore the podcast Gamecraft by Mitch Lasky and Blake Robbins is enjoyable listening. It is a deep-dive into the games industry starting in the early 1990s with shareware and iD Software. I’m only a bit into the first episode, but am already looking…

According to analytics firm data.ai, consumers spent ca 2 % less in App Store and Google Play in 2022 than in 2021. It was still 167 billion US dollars spent by consumers in one year, but going from growing 19 % in 2021 to shrinking in 2022 is a big change.

The number of announced personell reductions at larger US tech firms continue, just in the last day or so with Coinbase cutting 20 % (after cutting 18 % in June 2022), Flexport also cutting 20 % and Carta cutting 10 %. It is new proof points of the reset many companies are doing, and probably…

Adam Schaub and Marcus Jacobs have started Seider, a Stockhom-based games studio, and raised capital from A16Z Games. Video and mobile games is one of the sectors where Stockholm and the wider Nordic ecosystem have real depth from multiple large successes (King, Supercell, Unity and many others). “Standing of the shoulder of giants” is a…

Storytel, the audiobook subscription company, has had a bumpy ride on the stock market the last 2 years, especially in 2022 after founder Jonas Tellander left his role as CEO in February 2022. Founder leaving, somewhat of a reset in the growth/profitability trade-off and crashing tech valuations is an unpleasant combination. Still, the company managed…

After a startup has grown larger (hopefully $100 million in revenue), a good way for founders and early investors to exit is via a listing on a stock exchange of the company. The overall leaders in this aspect is the Nasdaq and New York Stock Exchange, who really are the only western stock exchanges for…

Fred Wilson (partner at USV and long-time blogger) had some good observations in his What will happen in 2023 blog post. On the new fundraising environment (lower valuations and higher demands on startups to be funded) he writes: “This new normal will lead to many flat rounds, down rounds, inside rounds, and rounds with a…

Some very good comments on tech M&A by Rick Sherlund (vice chairman investment banking Bank of America, formerly top tech analyst at Goldman Sachs for 17 years). The very high valuations in 2020 and 2021 make it hard to find willing sellers, as they see the current valuation (-80%) as too low. Rich points out…