Brandon Donnelly
Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
Brandon Donnelly
Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
There’s a lot of talk about how venture capital investment has shifted from the suburbs to cities and how it is also concentrated in certain metro areas. But a new report from the Martin Prosperity Institute has dug even deeper to look at the top 20 neighborhoods (zip codes) in the US for venture capital investment.
Here’s a summary of what they found:
“The top 20 neighborhoods or zip codes for venture investment include nine in San Francisco, five in San Jose, three in Boston-Cambridge (one in suburban Waltham and two in Cambridge close to MIT) and one each in San Diego (close to the University of California, San Diego), Dallas, and New York (close to New York University).”
And here’s the full top 20 list:
Initially I looked at this list and thought that neighborhoods such as Menlo Park and Redwood City shouldn’t be labeled as San Francisco, since they are outside of the county. But technically they still fall within the San Francisco Metropolitan Area.
It’s amazing how San Francisco dominates this list.
I just got home from a couple of coffee meetings, an afternoon bike ride and an impromptu basketball shootaround. Toronto is a different place in the summer. And it feels great to be biking everywhere.
But Toronto is more than just Toronto. Toronto is at the center of a much larger urban agglomeration. And our continued success is going to partially hinge on our ability to work together in a coordinated way.
The Martin Prosperity Institute here in Toronto recently published a new report that looks at worldwide venture capital investment by city. The report is called Rise of the Global Startup City.
The data is from 2012, because that’s what was available from Thomson Reuters, so keep in mind that there might be some variation in the rankings if we were to look at more recent data. Some of the cities sit fairly close.
Nonetheless, here are a few of the broader takeaways (from the report page):
“The United States accounts for nearly 70 percent (68.6 percent) of total global venture capital, followed by Asia (14.4 percent) and Europe (13.5 percent).”
“Just two broad regions — the San Francisco Bay Area and the Boston-New York-Washington Corridor — account for more than 40 percent of global venture investment.”
“Global venture investment is highly uneven and spiky — it is concentrated in a small number of large cities and metros around the world.”
Here are the top 20 cities by total venture capital investment (in USD millions):
There’s a lot of talk about how venture capital investment has shifted from the suburbs to cities and how it is also concentrated in certain metro areas. But a new report from the Martin Prosperity Institute has dug even deeper to look at the top 20 neighborhoods (zip codes) in the US for venture capital investment.
Here’s a summary of what they found:
“The top 20 neighborhoods or zip codes for venture investment include nine in San Francisco, five in San Jose, three in Boston-Cambridge (one in suburban Waltham and two in Cambridge close to MIT) and one each in San Diego (close to the University of California, San Diego), Dallas, and New York (close to New York University).”
And here’s the full top 20 list:
Initially I looked at this list and thought that neighborhoods such as Menlo Park and Redwood City shouldn’t be labeled as San Francisco, since they are outside of the county. But technically they still fall within the San Francisco Metropolitan Area.
It’s amazing how San Francisco dominates this list.
I just got home from a couple of coffee meetings, an afternoon bike ride and an impromptu basketball shootaround. Toronto is a different place in the summer. And it feels great to be biking everywhere.
But Toronto is more than just Toronto. Toronto is at the center of a much larger urban agglomeration. And our continued success is going to partially hinge on our ability to work together in a coordinated way.
The Martin Prosperity Institute here in Toronto recently published a new report that looks at worldwide venture capital investment by city. The report is called Rise of the Global Startup City.
The data is from 2012, because that’s what was available from Thomson Reuters, so keep in mind that there might be some variation in the rankings if we were to look at more recent data. Some of the cities sit fairly close.
Nonetheless, here are a few of the broader takeaways (from the report page):
“The United States accounts for nearly 70 percent (68.6 percent) of total global venture capital, followed by Asia (14.4 percent) and Europe (13.5 percent).”
“Just two broad regions — the San Francisco Bay Area and the Boston-New York-Washington Corridor — account for more than 40 percent of global venture investment.”
“Global venture investment is highly uneven and spiky — it is concentrated in a small number of large cities and metros around the world.”
Here are the top 20 cities by total venture capital investment (in USD millions):
Greg Spencer of the Martin Prosperity Institute recently published an interesting article called: Is it time to create a super-Metro? Here’s what it’s about:
Our research at the Martin Prosperity Institute shows that economic competition is now primarily between cities rather than countries. To be successful in this environment, Toronto and its neighbours need to find a way to erase local divisions and solve their problems together.
Toronto is a wildly successful city, world-class in many respects. When our current institutional arrangements were forged, no one predicted the level of growth the region is experiencing. Status quo local government arrangements cannot adequately deliver the level of co-operation and collaboration needed to cope and plan for the future.
Greg believes that the answer is a new regional authority that could give “democratic legitimacy to the very important decisions being made for the benefit of the wider region.”
I’m not going to comment on how all of this should be executed, but I fully agree that we need to think and act as one consolidated urban entity.
Cities are the economic driver of the new global economy, but many (most?) of our governance structures do not properly reflect that reality. And the risk is that we are allowing arbitrary municipal boundaries and lack of coordination to hinder our ability to compete globally.
This goes for Toronto and it goes for every other city region around the world.
And here are the top 20 cities according to venture capital investment per capita:
Given the variation in these two lists, you realize that some cities are largely benefitting from sheer size. London, for example, drops off the list when you look at venture capital investment per capita.
In fact, in this second list, 19 of the 20 cities are in the United States. The only non-American city that remains is Toronto.
Greg Spencer of the Martin Prosperity Institute recently published an interesting article called: Is it time to create a super-Metro? Here’s what it’s about:
Our research at the Martin Prosperity Institute shows that economic competition is now primarily between cities rather than countries. To be successful in this environment, Toronto and its neighbours need to find a way to erase local divisions and solve their problems together.
Toronto is a wildly successful city, world-class in many respects. When our current institutional arrangements were forged, no one predicted the level of growth the region is experiencing. Status quo local government arrangements cannot adequately deliver the level of co-operation and collaboration needed to cope and plan for the future.
Greg believes that the answer is a new regional authority that could give “democratic legitimacy to the very important decisions being made for the benefit of the wider region.”
I’m not going to comment on how all of this should be executed, but I fully agree that we need to think and act as one consolidated urban entity.
Cities are the economic driver of the new global economy, but many (most?) of our governance structures do not properly reflect that reality. And the risk is that we are allowing arbitrary municipal boundaries and lack of coordination to hinder our ability to compete globally.
This goes for Toronto and it goes for every other city region around the world.
And here are the top 20 cities according to venture capital investment per capita:
Given the variation in these two lists, you realize that some cities are largely benefitting from sheer size. London, for example, drops off the list when you look at venture capital investment per capita.
In fact, in this second list, 19 of the 20 cities are in the United States. The only non-American city that remains is Toronto.
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