“Small businesses are the future of America,” said New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg this morning at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in NYC. Bloomberg described New York City as “the place to come” for entrepreneurs and startups, announcing that the city-sponsored NYC Entrepreneurial Fund had made its first investment in local startup MyCityWay.
Bloomberg also announced that the fund would be able to invest up to $22 million in startups thanks to a partnership with Firstmark Capital. The fund’s first investment comes as $300,000 of a $500,000 seed round for MyCityWay, which won the NYC Big Apps competition last year.
MyCityWay, the fund’s first recipient, plans on expanding to a number of other cities across the country after its upcoming move from New Jersey to New York City.
Bloomberg offered a number of reasons for startups to consider NYC among the top places to move when looking for talent, opportunity and a “breadth of cultural opportunities”.
“We already have more media and information technology jobs in New York City – 315,000 and counting – than any other metropolitan area in the nation,” Bloomberg noted, adding that “during the first quarter of this year, venture capital funding increased by 19% even as it went down in Silicon Valley and the rest of the nation.”
Bloomberg admitted that the city does not have any tax incentive programs for tech companies, but instead has the fund and incubators. As for the fund, Business Insider writes that the “city retains the right to veto investments, but is otherwise letting FirstMark manage the fund”, which it hopes will make New York “more of a hub for entrepreneurship and technology.”
The entirety of Bloomberg’s speech is available for viewing on TechCrunch.
