Mayor Bloomberg Unveils New York City Venture Fund (NYC Seed) | Hacker News Reader

Mayor Bloomberg Unveils New York City Venture Fund (NYC Seed)

dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com

21 pointsfortes14 comments

One has to wonder, if a government institution gets involved in a fund, what kind of regulations would be at play? Quotas for race/gender ratios?

Would-be NYC founders don't need another source of seed funding, they need a community. What NYC really needs is the equivalent of the Y-Scraper and a nice space for like-minded folks to hang out and work together and mingle with potential funders and mentors.

http://jellynyc.pbwiki.com/JellyInNYC

NYC High-Tech Meetups usually have very good turn outs

I'm new to NYC -- any meetups in particular that you'd recommend?

http://newtech.meetup.com/1/

This is the one run by the Meetup folks. Usually the first Tuesday of every month. They get 6-7 startup to demo their product. The turnout is usually great, at least 500+ people will show up.

Quick summary:

"Unveiled on Monday evening as part of New York’s Internet Week, NYC Seed will provide up to $200,000 of investment into New York-based technology start-ups."

http://www.nycseed.com/

"We encourage first-time founders. There is no set formula for why we invest in a company, but there are some qualities we would like to see. We are looking for a team with a compelling idea that makes sense today. Your team should be technically savvy, with members that possess a proven record of completing complex technology projects. We will ask to review a prototype of your product. "

Note: Must be in NYC.

Their specs sound a lot like Ycombinator's.

their application looks suspiciously like the y-comb app ;-)

http://www.nycseed.com/nycseed%20application.pdf

Sort of a cross between YC and the DMV.

I can only guess this is an attempt to make NYC startup scene more competitive. I think this is a really cool thing for a city to do, maybe more cities need to take note?

As a New Yorker, I'm psyched for this. I had a lengthy discussion with a coworker about how NYC is far less likely to breed the mind of an inventor. I showed him PG's recent article (http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html).

I hope this brings the entrepreneurial spirit to NYC. There's LOTS of creative people here but many get blinded by the dollar signs of some fairly mundane industries. I'd love to see some dollars backing innovative ventures too.

I am also in NYC, but I feel this fund will not work out. The problem is for East Coast VCs and Government funds, they are too timid to make themselves like fools. Unfortunately things are just like what PG said in his video that showed up yesterday in HN. "In technology venture funding, if you are too careful, you lose." Unfortunately, only few VCs such as Fred Wilson in East Coast have the courage to make themselves like fool once in a while but reap big rewards.

Of course, if this fund is run by Fred Wilson, then I will have more confidence, but it is not.

Hmm... I am curious. I don't have much experience in this regard, but I have a tendency to think the people of NYC would rather invest in financial instruments which a) they know very well and b) have astronomical returns without requiring everything involved in a start-up.

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