Venture capital investment in New York has had a good first quarter this year. CrunchBase data revealed that for the first quarter, there were 98 firms that secured close to $1.3 billion in funding so far, TechCrunch reported.
This funding amount makes it the best-performing first quarter in terms of committed capital in the Big Apple and the second best quarter since 2009. Startups in New York secured more than $1.6 billion in the final quarter of last year. In the past two days alone, new companies in the Big Apple have secured close to $200 million in financing, the report said.
West Coast investors are also going East to look for good deals in New York. Menlo Ventures is one of them. Managing Director John Jarve told TechCrunch, "We traditionally had the bulk of our investment in the Bay Area and Boston was the number two [geography] for us. [Now] I keep telling my partners we should open a New York office. This is here to stay."
A hint that venture capitalists from the West Coast are providing NYC investors with more competition is the funding round for Canary which was led by Khosla Ventures. A New York investor told TechCrunch, "We got priced out and sized out."
The range of startups launched in the Big Apple also seems to encourage the faith in investors that the investment climate in the New York is not just a bubble but something that will stay for the long-term. Flybridge Capital Partners General Partner David Aronoff told TechCrunch, "I can't think of a day where we had this much activity and this size of investment. And diversity. There was a hardware product, a financial technology company, a media company and in TripleLift you've got something in adtech marketing that is a business to business sale." Flybridge Capital Partners is an early-stage investment firm based in New York and Boston, the report said.
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