Back in the New York Groove
When I left New York in 2013 to join First Round in the SF office, the NY tech scene still felt nascent. Before my NYC departure, I was working at WIRED and I made it my job to get to know the companies that were defining Silicon Alley. I went to NY Tech meetups, begged founders like Zach Sims of Codeacademy to be in Ray-Ban ads, and became SplashThat’s first enterprise customer. The New York startup community felt incredibly collaborative and at that time, knowable.
Now, 9 years later I’ve returned to the East Coast and am rediscovering the city and how much the tech community has grown since I’ve left. You cannot walk through Union Square without running into NY-based VCs or partners visiting from San Francisco. In coffee shops in NoMad, one now can overhear an operator at a growth stage company contemplating starting something new (like JeanClaude did on a recent trip to the Big Apple). Every venture firm (and this Mom) have launched NY outposts with storied firms like Sequoia, Threshold, and Index all recently opening offices. The New York ecosystem feels much more mature than in 2013, benefiting from an influx of new founders and funders.
The city is buzzing with entrepreneurial activity and I couldn’t be happier to be opening up XYZ East on the coast I grew up on and getting reacquainted with the city I love so much. Some of the most talented entrepreneurs have decided to make the New York area their home — it’s clear that it will continue to be a hub for future innovation and the next wave of companies of consequence will be built here.
XYZ has invested in NY-based companies since our inception in 2017, backing upstarts like Auxillius and Chapter, totaling 10 investments to date. On top of that, the last three (unannounced) investments I’ve personally made have all been in companies based in the tristate area solving big challenges in enterprise and fintech in sectors like climate and other tech-forgotten industries — and I am excited to back many more in the years to come.
