Those of us (like Ed. Donna) in the New York metro have long wondered, with our concentration of major health centers, universities, pharma (diminishing) and research–with plenty of VCs right here–why the bucks aren’t flowing to local healthcare tech companies. In fact, it’s a bit of a desert here–ask any member of Health 2.0 NYC. It turns out that 90% of VC investment in NY last quarter went to internet (things like shopping) and mobile companies, not healthcare tech or green/cleantech. By contrast, internet and mobile made up 39% of California and 26% of Boston VC funding. A little imbalanced indeed, and not for lack of trying in this ‘luxury city’–and reminiscent of the late-90s Silicon Alley boom (followed by a horrendous bust). This article, buried in the Saturday business section of the New York Post, deserves wider dissemination. NY’s tight tech net may be a risky bet.
Update 19 July: Perhaps some encouragement will come from the city-backed applied science university campus that may be located on Roosevelt Island (convenient to both Manhattan and Queens boroughs), Governors Island (isolated) or the Brooklyn Navy Yard (ditto). The winning university (interested–Stanford, Cornell and Technion-Israel) will have a graduate-level program that applies graduate-level research to commercial activity. Even with the award at end of this year, it won’t open till 2015…a century in tech time. Crain’s NY Business cheers away.