Back in the 1990s my father told me to move to the Valley if I wanted to raise money. I proved him wrong, but he was right. It would have been a LOT easier to raise money for my startup in San Francisco. Ryan Roberts, my very own startup lawyer, points to a great paper titled, “Buy Local? The Geography of Successful and Unsuccessful Venture Capital Expansion” just published by Henry Chen, Paul Gompers, Anna Kovener, and Josh Lerner.”
The paper concludes that “Non-local investments made by venture capital firms based in the Valley, Boston, and New York outperform their local investments.”
I was on Sand Hill Road a few months ago and the guys at Sequoia explained that my startup was a no brainer to fund, but I would need to relocate to the Bay Area. Maybe I should send them a link to the paper on Scribd. Thanks for the post Ryan.
Really? No money unless you move to the Bay area?
There will be a huge congregation of VCs in the Dallas area in March. Check WBT Innovation Marketplace (www.wbtshowcase.com).