One of the main evidence of our recent “Open Innovation Outlook 2022. Macro-Trends for 2023 in Corporate-Startup Engagement” report was the growing attention to the East Coast by large international companies that have opened innovation outposts (or are about to do it) in New York and Boston.
In particular, the New York ecosystem boasts over 4,300 scaleups out of 10,000 startups (while Boston counts 1,600), way above the numbers France, Germany, Spain and Italy put together.
NYC is also growing faster than other ecosystems in terms of investments – the number doubled between 2020 and 2021 and reached almost $60B – and continues to be the city with the largest number of Israeli-founded tech unicorns in the world, with 26 companies based in Manhattan.
A high-quality specialized workforce
Furthermore, the Big Apple can rely on a broad range of high-quality specialized international professionals (around 4M+, 3.2 million of which with college degrees), more than Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Washington and Boston combined. The extremely sophisticated local workforce is characterized by a strong diversity (47% are immigrants, nearly 200 languages are spoken) and cultural synergies.
According to Simone Tarantino, who has been based in the city for over 20 years and has been leading the Mind the Bridge Innovation Outpost in New York since last December, NYC represents the perfect starting point for opening up to the rest of America and embracing the global markets.
Mind the (NYC) verticals
Here Artificial Intelligence, Big data and analytics, Cybersecurity, Fintech and Biotech are simply overwhelming. Everybody knows about Cyber NYC, a series of events focused on Cybersecurity that is becoming a worldwide reference. Fintech seems to be the most coveted vertical:38% of the $100B+ invested in the world in 2021 directly landed in the pockets of American startups, the majority of which are on the East Coast. BioTech and Life Sciences follow, with 9 medical universities, over 60 hospitals and 100 foundations dedicated to research: here startups can find fertile ground, and over $1B of investments every year.
While in Silicon Valley disruptive technology is still the king, in NYC people seem to be more used to looking at profit, long term results and growth, which can bring a solid return to investors, while creating jobs and well-being for the entire ecosystem.
It’s really hard to say which ecosystem would be best, New York or Boston. Our advice is to take the best from both of them: for startups and large companies, these are two places to look over if they want to stay on the front line of innovation.