On February 24th everything changed. But as grim as it may sound, the Russian war on Ukraine seems to be helping western startups. A flight to safety has boosted valuations while thousands of tech workers flee Russia for opportunities in the west. In January, when I wrote the first instalment…

Startup valuations aren’t frothy, they’ve been red hot since the aftermath of Covid and the boil is about to build into vapour. — Startups are in a bubble. You’d be kidding yourself if you didn’t agree. The opportunities that startups create simply cannot match the current onslaught of funding that is thrown at them. Not a week goes by as yet another billion-dollar unicorn is conceived from almost thin air.

“Journalism is helpful because you are often parachuted into stories that you know absolutely nothing about. I found the fact that I had been trained to make up my mind about a confusing set of information extremely helpful,” Michael Moritz , chairman of Sequoia Capital and former Time bureau chief. …

Introducing the Founder-Investor Fit Model — There aren’t many things more important for startup founders than finding the right investor. While finding a match has traditionally been daunting, we are slowly beginning to understand what really drives venture capital and private equity funds. The findings from my recent doctoral dissertation at IE Business School show that…

(This article first appeared on Business Insider, Aug. 10, 2016.) The Finnish startup scene has shown great promise through the years: It has given birth to products such as Linux, Angry Birds and Clash of Clans. However, one thing is holding it back. …

PhD dropouts are a headache for universities. But no dropout is the same, there’s a different story behind all individual decisions. This one is mine. In late 2010, while at a family office, I identified a research gap that I thought was a key success factor for the industry. Armed…

Consumer banking is having a watershed moment. On one hand, the experiment with negative real interest rates is putting pressure on traditional banking business models. On the other, nimble digital startups, such as Estonia’s Transferwise, have begun to offer better services cheaper. Even free. But investment banks, the financial behemoths…

During my 12 years at Bloomberg, I developed a die-hard addiction for a news tool that we used to blow our competition out of the water with. This tool, called simply the edit screen (EDIT <GO>), was a place where all the world’s stock exchange press feeds were directed for…

Spoiler: It’s considered safe — While venture capitalists may be disrupting their own business models by pushing digitalisation, new technologies are posing an even bigger threat for their older sibling — the private equity industry. …