Publication: New York City: Transforming a City into a Tech Innovation Leader
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2016-11
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2016-12-15
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New York city has become one of the largest and most vibrant tech startup ecosystems in the world. Today, the city is widely seen as a leading startup hub worldwide. However, this was not something one can have anticipated just ten years ago. The financial crisis shocked the city, providing the circumstances for the transformation of the New York startup scene. By 2015, New York accounted for nearly a 6 billion dollars venture capital investment in startups and had over 14,500 startups. New York ecosystem provides insights on how startups are impacting city economies, generating new sources of jobs and helping transforming the urban landscape. New York represents a new model of startup ecosystems that is emerging in cities worldwide. Different to silicon valley’s suburban ecosystem, New York’s is urban in nature and well integrated into the local economy and industry base. New York is the prime example of the new urban startup ecosystem model. Although New York remains distinguished in many ways as a city, many of the challenges it faced when developing the tech ecosystem are similar to those confronted by many other cities. These include: (a) lack of technical talents, (b) lack of available seed finance, (c) limited affordable space for entrepreneurs, and (d) a small and decentralized community. The policies to support the ecosystem from the city provide valuable lessons to policymakers with similar goals in their economies.
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“Mulas, Victor; Gastelu-Iturri, Mikel. 2016. New York City: Transforming a City into a Tech Innovation Leader. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/25753 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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