Congratulations New York Metro area. Not that VC dollars are the be all and end all, but it's one important measure of the health of a startup community, and NYC's latest quarterly numbers from the PWC Moneytree report are continuing a positive trend--not only relative to the Valley, but in the aggregate. We're up 11.5% year over year this quarter, while Silicon Valley is down a whopping 21.8%. Results are similar for the first half of this year overall in each region. Furthermore, we're up quarter to quarter 22.4%, outpacing the Valley's 16.8%
What's also interesting is that the relative size advantage of Silicon Valley's dollars has never been this low. Right now, 3.8x the number of VC dollars go into the Valley as they do into NYC. For the first half of last year, that number was 5.5x. What's also interesting is that based on the number of deals themselves, the numbers are even better, coming in at just a touch under 3x. I shared the numbers with Fred this morning and he noted anecdotally that if you strip out cleantech, biotech and the like, the numbers are more like 2:1.
Either way, if that holds, it will be the fourth year in a row that Valley gets under three deals funded for every NYC deal.
To put it in perspective, if you've got a VC firm that plays in both markets, they should be doing *at least* a quarter of their deals here. Or, for every four investment professionals, they should have at least one that focuses here.
So, congrats NYC! Onward and upward!