2018 New York’s Startup-VC Scene (Part II)
Updated: Jan 10, 2018
Hi! I’m a freshly minted New Yorker — B2B enterprise tech professional and investor — who is eager to dive right into New York’s Startup-VC scene. But first, I want to get the lay of the land. I figure, you may want that too. So, I plan to share my research with you in my 2018 New York’s Startup-VC Scene Part I and Part II posts.
If I missed something, please leave a comment. I plan to update this document periodically.
Here’s what you’ll find in this post:
- New York Fortune 500 tech titans
- New York tech ecosystem map
- New York biggest local tech companies
- New York’s startups to watch
- Fastest growing startups in NYC
- Local tech media and podcasts
- New York entrepreneurs and investors to know
- New York events and conferences
- New York incubators and accelerators
- New York co-working spaces
- Corporate innovation labs in New York
Undeniably, big corporations help support a healthy startup-VC ecosystem by providing business development opportunities, R&D resources, funds, exits, and more. And, so, the first segment of this post is on New York’s Fortune 500s list.
💪🏼 NEW YORK FORTUNE 500 TITANS
Following California and Texas, New York houses the third largest mass of Fortune 500s at 54 companies. New York’s top 10 are listed below — along with their perspective ranking and annual revenue. Note that these companies represent a variety of sectors including: telco, finance, tech, CPG, pharma and insurance.
Curious about the rest of the other 44 companies? Find the rest of the Fortune 500 list here.
New York’s biggest tech companies
3 of New York’s titans land in the tech sector and include: IBM, CA, and IAC. Their perspective annual revenues range from $3 to nearly $80 Billion.
IBM offers resources for startups and partnership opportunities to VCs via their IBM Ventures arm. 2016 to date, IBM New York investments included DIGITAL ASSET RESEARCH and acquisitions included Bluewolf. Below you can see IBM Venture’s latest investments and IBM’s latest acquisitions.
CA Technologies, in the last decade has made zero investments in New York companies. In terms of acquisitions, in the last two years, CA acquired IdMlogic (2015). You can get a snapshot of their investments and acquisitions below.
While IBM, CA and IAC have not been great contributors to New York’s scene, there is good news. As per PitchBook, Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) investment has increased from $.5 Billion in 2010 to ≳$2 Billion since 2014.
📍NEW YORK TECH ECOSYSTEM MAP
But what about the rest of NYC’s tech ecosystem? If you’re like me, you’ll want to see where NYC’s tech companies are located. See the map below.
If you’re curious about the big tech satellite offices, the headcount and engineer breakdown, check out the data below:
🔥 Built In NYC’s TOP LOCAL TECH COMPANIES
NYC’s Top 100 tech companies, in aggregate, employ nearly 40,000 people. The top 25 local tech companies are listed below. There’s a lot of media, a handful of software companies and a sprinkle of food, fintech, web, healthtech, e-commerce, and fitness startups.
- Bloomberg (software)
- Oath (media)
- CA Technologies (software)
- VICE News (media)
- Blue Apron (food)
- E*Trade (fintech)
- BuzzFeed (media)
- Yext (web)
- FreshDirect (food)
- Etsy Design Team (e-commerce)
- AppNexus (web)
- Refinery29 (media)
- Peloton Engineering (fitness)
- Information Builders (software)
- Flatiron Health (healthtech)
- Shutterstock Opiniones (web)
- Squarespace Inc. (web)
- Infor (software)
- Group Nine Product (media)
- Oscar Health (healthtech)
- Gilt Groupe (e-commerce)
- Intersection Staff (marketing)
- Namely (software)
- Business Insider (media)
- XO Group Tech Team (media)
Check out the rest of the 2017 NYC’s Top 100 tech companies here.
👀 NEW YORK’S STARTUPS TO WATCH IN 2018
After browsing Google, CB Insights, blogs/news sites and researching startups on Mattermark and Crunchbase, below I share my list of New York’s startups to watch in 2018.
New York unicorns to watch
You’ll want to watch the privately-held startups with a +$1 Billion valuation.
New York’s early stage startups to watch
You’ll also want to keep an eye on these 21 early-stage startups. Analysis was driven on high levels of founding team background, growth, mindshare, employee growth in the last 6 months, and more.
- Abacus — Abacus is an intuitive way for you to reimburse your team, reconcile corporate cards, and implement your expense policy.
- AND CO — A smart back office for freelancers.
- Brooklinen — Brooklinen is a manufacturer and supplier of sheets and pillows. Luxury bedding, underpriced.
- Cheddar — Cheddar is a live and on demand video news network focused on covering the most innovative products, technologies, and services.
- Electric.ai — Electric helps businesses save time and money by keeping their business-critical apps and hardware running smoothly, right from Slack.
- Ellevest — Ellevest offers digital investment advice for women.
- Emissary —Our platform pairs sales professionals with former executives at the companies they are targeting.
- Function of Beauty — Function of Beauty offers personalized hair care products tailored to its customers’ specific hair profile and goals.
- Jopwell — Jopwell is a digital recruiting platform that connects your recruiters with diverse professionals and students.
- Kit —Kit allows users to discover, discuss, and get interesting products – grouped into kits – for all sorts of activities.
- Latch — Latch makes access easier for everyone at a modern building.
- Lemonade Inc. —Lemonade offers homeowners and renters insurance powered by artificial intelligence and behavioral economics.
- MoneyMio — MoneyMio is the first bilingual website dedicated to empowering Latinos in the U.S. with personal finance education and comparison tools.
- Morty — Morty is a mortgage marketplace that allows homebuyers to shop, compare — and close — any loan product from any lender, completely online.
- Ollie — Ollie delivers freshly made dog food from real, human-grade ingredients your dog loves to eat, delivered to your door.
- Pager — Pager is a mobile-health patient engagement technology platform that provides care navigation and care mgmt solutions for payers & providers.
- Raden — Raden uses integrated technology to bring travelers high-quality, connected smart luggage.
- Roam — Roam is an international network of communal living spaces.
- Simple Contacts — Simple Contacts provides a standard ophthalmology test verified by a licensed ophthalmologist and a prescription of new contact lenses.
- Thrive Global — Thrive Global is a corporate and consumer well-being and productivity platform that offers science-based solutions to improve performance.
- Wade & Wendy — Wade & Wendy offers machine intelligence personalities that aim to make hiring more human.
🌱 FASTEST GROWING STARTUPS IN NYC
In October 2017, inc. magazine released a list inviting us all to Meet the 10 Fastest-Growing Companies in New York City. I list the companies below in descending order with a description, sales growth percentage from startup’s launch, and Inc 5000 rank.
- AutomotiveMastermind (2013) — makes software for car makers.
Sales growth: 17,674 %; Inc. 5000 rank: 7 - DashBid(2010)— helps manage and sell advertising.
Sales growth: 12,978%; Inc. 5000 rank: 14 - MM.LaFleur’s The M Dash (2013) — e-commerce delivery service for professional clothing.
Sales growth: 6,594%; Inc. 5000 rank: 43 - iBenzer (2013) — makes laptop sleeves and other tech accessories at its New York City studio.
Sales growth: 6,291%; Inc. 5000 rank: 48 - Chef’s Cut Real Jerky (2009)— sells a variety of meat jerky products.
Sales growth: 5,669%; Inc. 5000 rank: 58 - The Elephant Pants (2013) — makes loose pants, giving 10% of sales to organizations that aim to end the exploitation of elephants.
Sales growth: 4,582%; Inc. 5000 rank: 81 - S’well (2013)— maker of a line of artfully designed water bottles.
Sales growth: 3,862%; Inc. 5000 rank: 100 - Bionic Solution (2013) — provides growth strategy services.
Sales growth: 3,391%; Inc. 5000 rank: 120 - TripleLift (2013) — specializes in native video and image ads.
Sales growth: 2,522%; Inc. 5000 rank: 164 - Zeel Massage (2016) — company lets users book massages on demand via an app.
Sales growth: 2,489%; Inc. 5000 rank: 167
🎙 LOCAL TECH MEDIA AND PODCASTS
Media — Follow this Twitter list of NYC’s local tech media stars here.
Podcasts — Take a look this SoundCloud podcast list here.
💰 NEW YORK ENTREPRENEURS AND INVESTORS TO KNOW
Global
Follow the top startup founders, execs, and VCs on this Twitter list; follow these entrepreneurs on this Instagram list; and make sure you know the top 20 VCs in the world and the Midas List of Top Tech Investors.
New York
Consider following Built In NYC serial entrepreneurs and these top 50 women tech founders. Most importantly, follow the New York VC investors on the Midas list. See below for ranking, investor, VC firm, and notable investment.
To check out NYC Digital’s extensive list of New York investors, visit the page below.
🎟 NEW YORK EVENTS AND CONFERENCES
I took a look around and Built In NYC has a good list of NYC tech events. You can choose events from your favorite categories, including: Big Data, Cloud, Data Science, Venture Capital, and Women in Tech.
Bizzabo’s Stephen Kim put together an awesome 2018 tech event and conference guide. Events are organized by month.
inc. magazine’s Andrew Thomas put together The Top 30 Conferences for Entrepreneurs in 2017. Although it’s not a list for 2018, I find it to have some pretty great conferences that will repeat in the new year.
⛽️ NEW YORK ACCELERATORS AND INCUBATORS
According to the Seed Accelerator Rankings Project, here are the best U.S. startup accelerators, to date.
Net Guru’s New York top 3 accelerators
- Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator — Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator (ERA) is an early-stage venture capital fund and technology accelerator.
- Grand Central Tech —Grand Central Tech is a New York-based startup accelerator specialized in seed-stage and non-equity assistance investments.
- Techstars — Techstars Worldwide Entrepreneur Network, founders and their teams connect with other entrepreneurs, experts, mentors, alumni, investors, community leaders, and corporate partners who will help their companies grow.
NYC Digital’s New York incubator list
🏓 NEW YORK CO-WORKING SPACES
The New Worker Magazine consistently updates this map to keep the world in the know of New York co-working spaces. You can explore with the interactive map here.
If you want to cross-reference the plethora of co-working spaces, you can visit NYC Digital’s workspaces list here and check out the best co-working space lists below.
👩🏽🔬👨🏼🔬 CORPORATE INNOVATION LABS IN NEW YORK
CB Insights put together a list of 65 corporate innovation labs and categorized them by verticals, from technology to finance to media to insurance. Most are mapped in the map below. You can explore the full list here.
New York innovation labs
New York is home to 2 innovation labs: IPG Media Lab (media) and Eastern Labs (finance).
IPG Media Lab — IPG’s Media Lab has a team of marketers, engineers, and creatives who work directly with clients, partner with other agencies, deliver custom content to publishers, and more.
Eastern Labs — The small team at Eastern Labs is dedicated to new ideas, big bets, and experimentation. Building new products quickly, testing them, and deploying them (or going back to the drawing board) is key to their innovation process. Successful ideas can be spun out into new businesses or “spun in” to build up Eastern Bank’s robust offerings. They even partner with existing companies.
Want more info on New York’s Startup-VC scene? Check out 2018 New York’s Startup-VC Scene (Part I).
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About Author: Lolita Taub is a TEDx speaker and keynote, a World Economic Forum Global Shaper, an artificial intelligence enthusiast, and an enterprise tech professional and investor at Portfolia. She holds 9 years of enterprise B2B software-hardware-and-services sales experience at IBM, Cisco Systems, and in Silicon Valley. Lolita has been recognized for her work on Forbes, Inc.com, The Huffington Post, Entrepreneur.com, and Los Angeles Times, among other publications.
Follow Lolita on Twitter @lolitataub and connect with her here.
