(Bloomberg) — Online health-care provider Kry International AB, valued at $2 billion last year, has slashed 10% of its 1,000-strong workforce as part of a cost-cutting program aimed at placating investors including CPP Investments and Fidelity Management & Research.
“We need to respond to the market dynamics and we have to be conservative with our capital, and prove this to investors, partners and patients,” Kry’s co-founder and chief executive officer Johannes Schildt said in a statement.
Kry’s plans come at a time of tougher capital raising conditions across the private and public markets, where asset prices continue to tumble on accelerating inflation and the war in Ukraine. Sweden’s volume of initial public offerings is a case in point. Last year, the Nordic nation topped Continental Europe’s league for listings but deals have since slowed to a trickle.
Read More: Sweden Slips Down Europe IPO Rankings as Startup Listings Dry Up
Cash burn and profitability have become the main focal points for the market when analyzing unlisted firms, according to Isabella de Feudis, the chief executive officer of the Swedish Private Equity & Venture Capital Association.
“This is particularly true for late-stage companies closer to a public listing or other form of divestment,” de Feudis said in an interview. “It means firms need to be profitable earlier than before and reset their strategies from expansion to profitability.”
Those market dynamics have also caught up with other high-profile unicorns in Sweden. This week, Klarna Bank AB was reportedly looking to tap investors for more cash in a move that would cut its previous $45 billion valuation by about a third, according to people familiar with the matter.
Still, for de Feudis the changing investment climate has at least one silver lining. “In the long run all companies need to turn a profit, so the fact that expectations have been pushed forward might be healthy,” she said.
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