Archive for March 28th, 2010
Where Are NYC’s Startups and Who Is Funding Them?
Editor’s Note: This post was created in collaboration with Chris Paik, who was invaluable in helping me crunch the numbers. He’s looking for an internship in venture capital, so if you like this post, get in touch with him via his blog.
Lots of you enjoyed my post a few weeks ago on buzz and fund size among NYC venture firms. But why not take it further? Why not use all the data on Crunchbase of financings of NYC companies over the past five years?
So that’s what we did. And we got data for 814 venture financings since March 2005 worth a total of $3.1 billion. We were careful to exclude angel and strategic investors, since data around those deals are poor and would make the results harder to parse.
To start, let’s look at all venture firms that have completed over 7 financings of NYC-based companies in the past 5 years. Here, you can see how they stack up based on number of deals done:
Keep in mind that there is a long tail here — this chart represents 300 total financing events, only 37% of all the venture financings of NYC-based companies in Crunchbase. The rest of financings were done by other firms.
But this is just parsed by the number of financings — with no thought given to the size of the deals. Thus, let’s look at the (relative) deal size by the firms listed above when investing in NYC companies:
You’ll probably notice that there aren’t any labels on the Y-axis. In brief, I don’t trust the absolute data here. It’s often impossible to distinguish the relative contributions of investors in a syndicated deal. For example, if Union Square does a $1 MM seed deal, there isn’t any ambiguity there. But if the company’s next round is a $10 MM round syndicated among two growth capital firms and Union Square, there’s no way to really know how much each firm invested. However, it is probably safe to say that the growth capital firms do bigger deals than Union Square, since they first joined the syndicate at a later (bigger) round. Thus, the relative data is accurate, but the absolute numbers are highly questionable.
Since we selected these financings based on the zip code of the funded company’s headquarters, we can drill down a bit further and draw some really interesting conclusions. Specifically, where are funded companies? The following map looks at two factors: the number of financings in the zip code (the color of the dot) and the total amount of venture money invested in the zip code (the size of the dot):
There are certainly some surprising things here, at least to me. This entire map seems to be shifted a bit further north than I expected; are there really that many well-funded startups in Murray Hill? I also expected to see a bigger presence in TriBeCa.
There’s a lot of data here, and I’m sure there will be follow-up posts.
Read more posts on Brad’s Startup Adventures In NYC »
Join the conversation about this story »
Lloyds chief set for bigger bonus
Lloyds Banking Group has announced plans to award its chief executive, Eric Daniels, £2.85 million in shares.
However, the share incentive only comes to fruition if stock in the state-owned bank goes above the 114p mark in the next three years.
The award is in addition to his £1 million salary and the maximum £2.3 million [...]
US Q4 economic growth figures revised downwards
The Commerce Department has revealed that the world’s no.1 economy grew at a slower rate in the fourth quarter than previous estimates showed.
According to official figures, the US economy grew by an annualised 5.6% between the October and December period, rather than the 5.9% and the 5.7% previously estimated.
For the whole of 2009, GDP fell [...]
MTV Will Have A ‘Beavis And Butt-Head’ iPad App, And Much More (VIA, AAPL)
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Magazines and newspapers aren’t the only media eying big benefits upon the iPad’s arrival: TV is poised to use the device in new ways, including creating interactive, social apps designed to be used while watching live programming.
MTV Networks, for example, is developing a “co-browsing app meant to be used while watching live TV,” said one executive familiar with MTV’s iPad plans. “This means the iPad could be the appendage that makes interactive TV a reality.”
Kristin Frank, general manager of MTV and VH1 Digital, said MTV is focusing on two approaches to its apps, whether for mobile or the iPad: co-viewing apps that capture the social-media chatter around TV and awards shows and apps for video on the go. IPad apps for “Beavis and Butt-Head,” “MTV News” and “VH1 To Go” are all due in April, she said.
“Fifty-nine percent of people are multitasking when watching TV — that’s something we’ve always known,” said Ms. Frank, referring to recent Nielsen data quantifying a longstanding observation. “This is the next evolution.”
Mobile phone apps to run on the iPhone and Android devices remain MTV’s priority for 2010, Ms. Frank noted, but the iPad apps under construction are a reminder that TV is not about to sit the tablet out.
‘Sweet spot’
Part of the idea is that mobile devices are easier and more appealing to play with while watching TV than laptop or desktop computers — but the tablet will hit the sweet spot in between.
The iPad is going to open new opportunities, said Somrat Niyogi, CEO at the app developer Bazaar Labs. “I do think that with the iPad you are going to see a lot more conversation because the screen is bigger,” he said. “People will be more receptive to typing. It’s early, but you’re going to see in the next 12 to 18 months a series of start-ups experimenting in new ways to layer digital on the TV experience.”
Bazaar Labs has already released an iPhone app called Miso that suggests another avenue opening up. Miso users “check in” to TV shows or movies — much like they do on Foursquare and Gowalla for physical places like bars and restaurants — to share what they’re watching on Twitter and Facebook and earn badges.
Networks and movie studios are interested in the app’s ability to get viewers to broadcast what they’re watching to their social networks, according to Mr. Niyogi, who recently partnered with MGM Studios so users can unlock branded badges for its movie “Hot Tub Time Machine.”
Social media boost
You can see why networks and others might be intrigued by apps that revolve around what’s on TV right now. Major live, broadcast events like this year’s Oscars and Winter Olympics have already demonstrated how much social media chatter can surround televised events — and boost ratings. And tweets about TV shows tend to spike as they air, often making hit shows into trending topics on Twitter during airtime, according to data from Trendrr, a tracking service for social and digital media .
Even Google TV, the search giant’s planned partnership with Intel and Sony, intends to better integrate social networking and web-based applications with TV — imagine social-networking apps for television built by developers with Google’s Android operating system. The companies are reportedly working with Logitech to develop remotes with keyboards to make it easier to do things like update Twitter — a behavior we’re already seeing with users on mobile phone touchscreens or QWERTY keyboards.
Bravo recently introduced Talk Bubble, which lets viewers interact with the Real Housewives of New York, for example, while the show is on air and share comments via Twitter or Facebook. About 40% of Talk Bubble’s use so far is coming from mobile devices, according to Lisa Hsia, senior VP-Bravo digital media.
Join the conversation about this story »
See Also:
- For The Media Business, The iPad In 2010 Is The Same As The CD-ROM In 1994
- Apple Runs Out Of iPads!
- 10 Burning Questions About Apple’s iPad
The Google-Apple Battle Is ‘Weird’ To Googlers And Applers (GOOG, AAPL)
Putting aside the fact that Steve Jobs and Eric Schmidt were seen gulping lattes together in public on Friday, it is apparent that the two executives are in a bit of a feud.
As Google’s Android creeps onto the iPhone’s turf, Steve Jobs, as well as other Apple executives have soured on their relationship with Google. Likewise at Google, the top execs aren’t as fond of Apple as they once were.
Despite this growing resentment, the animosity at the top is not trickling down to the rest of the employees at Apple and Google, reports John Gruber of Daring Fireball. John says his sources at Google and Apple think the rancor between the two companies is “weird”.
John compares it to Microsoft, which cultivated an ‘us versus the world’ attitude. Microsoft wanted its employees to hate all other competitors, he says. Apple and Google don’t have that type of culture:
Outright hostility just doesn’t feel right to the engineers at either company. It is weird. There are decided and very obvious cultural differences between the two companies. Apple engineers tend to think Google makes ugly (but effective, smart) software, and they’re suspicious of Google’s “we want all of your data” strategy. Google engineers see that Apple doesn’t get the web — or at least the web as a software platform — and consider that quaint, and they’re flat-out offended by Apple’s autocratic control of the App Store. But, on the whole, the engineers at each company like each other. There are a lot of Apple engineers who use Google services and a lot of Google engineers who use Apple computers.
…This is a generals’ war. The rank-and-file at Apple and Google aren’t looking for battle, or even expecting it.
Read the whole thing at Daring Fireball >
See Also: 11 Apple Execs Hellbent On Destroying Google
Join the conversation about this story »
See Also:
- Apple To Unveil ‘iAd’ Mobile Ad Format While Google’s AdMob Deal Is Still In Limbo
- Apple’s Wimpy Patent Suit Is Proof That It’s Terrified Of Google
- 11 Apple Execs Hellbent On Destroying Google