The Swedish Mobile Internet: A Study of Entrepreneurship during 1998-2005

Abstract

This paper addresses entrepreneurship in the emerging Swedish mobile Internet industry. In this work, the mobile Internet is defined as a function. Entrepreneurship is defined as the creation of a new venture. The unique data set underlying this work consists of 249 ventures that were active in the mobile Internet industry during 1998-2004. The entry/exit pattern and their performance in 2000-2004 were studied along with VC involvement in this industry. On a population level, sales were growing and the number of employees was decreasing. Concerning profits, the population loses enormous amounts of money each year. Venture capital appears to have a rather negative impact on performance initially. However, the VC-backed ventures displayed strong performance improvements at the end of the investigated period.