While New York City may not be the number one tech hub in the U.S. right now, it could be soon.
New York is uniquely positioned at the center of “hyphen tech,” having leveraged its place as a multi-dimensional world capital for business. Fin-tech, ad-tech, fashion-tech, retail-tech, art-tech and food-tech are all thriving in New York City, and as such, it is becoming an extremely desirable city to launch a startup. And while New York is not catching up to Silicon Valley anytime soon, the city’s tech community is experiencing an unprecedented period of growth.
Money is pouring into the NYC tech sector, proven even yesterday when New York startups announced a total of $257.93 million in new funding in one day. Between 2009 and 2013, the amount of venture, angel and private equity money invested in New York startups increased by 200 percent, rising from $799 million to $3 billion. In comparison, Silicon Valley took in $11.4 billion in 2013, but only increased its funds raised by 110 percent.
In the first quarter of 2015, New York edged out California (for the first time) for the total number of startup funding applications. New York had a 22 percent increase in funding applications, advancing the city past its West Coast rival by 0.1 percent.
New York tech exits have also picked up in recent years, with the highest exit total of the past six years occurring last year. 2014 reached a six-year high with five IPOs. There has also been at least one VC-backed tech exit at a $1 billion valuation in each of the past three years. In 2013, Tumblr was acquired by Yahoo. In 2014, OnDeck Capital went public. In 2015, Etsy went public at a valuation of $1.7 billion, which was the largest IPO ever for a VC-backed New York tech company.
From 2009 to 2013, New York tech jobs increased by 33 percent, which was four times the job growth rate in the city’s other industries. This is indicative of New York’s relatively young presence in the tech world—more than 85 percent of the city’s tech companies and tech jobs were created over the past decade. In congruence with New York’s rising “hyphen tech” scene, there are about 150,000 technology jobs available in New York’s finance, healthcare and retail industries.
The average annual salary for high-tech workers was about $118,600 in 2012, whereas all other jobs in New York averaged out to about $79,500 yearly.
Data provided by the city of New York, CB Insights, and Forbes.
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