✂️ Cuts keep coming
Issue 2 - Jan 16th-29th: All is not well in big tech but signs of life for Irish companies
Welcome to Issue 2 of 2023 for “The Land of Saints, Scholars, and Techies”
A new year brings new beginnings and you will notice some changes in this newsletter. I hope you continue to enjoy and get value from it and may share it with your network. Check out below some of what you might have missed in the last couple of weeks.
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Top Stories
Layoffs continue 👎
We saw continued layoff announcements in large tech companies as the giants of Microsoft and Google as well as IBM, SAP, Spotify, Tik Tok and Asana announced job cuts. The impacts on Irish staff are yet to be fully revealed but it is troubling times in big tech. A new discussion has emerged in trying to contextual these layoffs pondering what’s next, why x 2, how large of events they are in a wider context of tech, if the tech bubble has burst and whether a sense of mimicry is the big driver behind them. Layoffs are incredibly tough and I expect them to continue in the early part of 2023. How companies and tech as a whole will emerge from them is yet to be seen but it certainly won’t be unscathed.
Ireland Attractiveness ☘️
Layoffs, housing problems, and the rise of remote working is putting a pause to plans to move to Ireland for many international tech workers. Workers are reassessing how important a move is in the wake of the rise of remote work and decreasing confidence in the Irish jobs market. While there is a lot of noise and upsetting news for many from layoffs the overall tech jobs market is not seeing too much of a shift overall. It will be interesting to see the impact of this across the economy and in the talent markets which may see increased competition for those talents already in Ireland.
A fresh NDRC Cohort 🌱
NDRC (National Digital Research Centre) the national startup accelerator programme run by Dogpatch announced the latest cohort for the beginning of 2023. These 7 companies were those successful from nearly 400 applicants (Including my own unsuccessful application). There is an interesting mix of companies - heavy on AI, developer enablement, and security - and at varying maturity stages. It will be interesting to chart their progress this year and beyond.
The programme’s MD Ian Browne provides an excellent breakdown of the companies here
Funding & Exits
KPMG Quarterly VC report showed a significant drop in VC investment in Ireland in 2022 when compared to 2021. This was reflected globally as investors braced for the impacts of global events.
Despite this, there is a significant amount of dry powder and committed funds in Ireland and globally so I do expect some companies to be successful when raising in 2023 but with a greater investment focus on business fundamentals and path to profitability over growth at all costs.
How do you see the investment landscape playing out in 2023?
Inscribe - Series B - $25 million - Link
Deciphex - Series B continued - €3.9 million - Link
Inclusio - Series A - €6 million - Link
Snigel - Not stated - Link
Obbi Golf - Seed - £1.25 million - Link
Proveye - Seed - €1 million - Link
Conversation Starter:
Elon and Twitter:
Elon Musk has been the talk of the technology and business world since his purchase of Twitter. It doesn’t seem to be going too well for him. From auctioning off office items, massive revenue drops, going to trial for his random tweets, lawsuits from the British royals, and more, all is not well in Elon world.
Having recently broken the record for the largest personal wealth loss in history the above just continues to bring focus onto Elon’s issues and cause consternation for his fans who point to Tesla, SpaceX, Boring company and beyond.
How Elon extracts himself from the mess that he has created with Twitter will be interesting to see in 2023. I don’t expect it to be pretty though.
Job Announcements
If you have any feedback on the newsletter please reach out in comments, email, or chat as I am only at the start of this journey and all ears on how I can improve.
My Story and The Land’s Background
👋 To quickly introduce myself to anyone new … My name is Seán. I am in my late 20s, born and raised largely in Dublin so apologies if my capital bias may sometimes show up.
I work in a start-up within the tech industry and believe that the Irish ecosystem is a dynamic one for a small country. With COVID and too much time on my hands, I decided to create this newsletter to capture the biggest stories and provide some commentary and thoughts of my own.
Thank you for taking some time out of your busy lives to read!
💬 Contact me: thelandsst@gmail.com
🤝 Want to be friends then connect with me on LinkedIn
Cheers,
Seán