Why the Micro-VC Surge Will Drive Innovation Across the US
The following was co-authored by Ezra Galston of Chicago Ventures(@ezramogee) and Samir Kaji (@samirkaji) of First Republic Bank.
Over the last several years much has been made of the opportunity, or perceived lack thereof in technology centers outside of the Bay Area and NYC. From Steve Case’s Rise of The Rest Tour, to Google for Entrepreneurs, to Brad Feld’s Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem , the discussion has consistently been overwhelmingly positive.
It’s easy to understand the stance as who wouldn’t want to support entrepreneurship, irrespective of geography? However, it’s hard to discern whether these opinions were borne out of a utopian desire or a sincere belief of true financial viability in markets outside of NYC and the Bay Area.
In Fred Wilson’s widely discussed (and debated) piece “Second and Third Tier Markets and Beyond,” he suggested that the opportunity outside of the Bay Area was significant, citing the successes of USV in New York, Upfront Ventures in LA and Foundry Group in Boulder:
“The truth is you can build a startup in almost any city in the US today. But it is harder. Harder to build the team. Harder to get customers. Harder to get attention. And harder to raise capital. Which is a huge opportunity for VCs who are willing to get on planes or cars and get to these places.
There is a supremacism that exists in the first and second tiers of the startup world. I find it annoying and always have. So waking up in a place like Nashville feels really good to me. It is a reminder that entrepreneurs exist everywhere and that is a wonderful thing.”
In an effort to move past anecdotes however, we wanted to explore one of the components that helps drive and catalyze early entrepreneurial activity in any localized geography — the availability of early stage funding.
Simply put, non-core US tech hubs are reliant on local early stage capital to subsist since seed stage fund sizes often make remote investing impractical (by contrast growth stage investors who manage large funds and have significant resources can easily invest in breakout companies outside their region).
With the hypothesis that quality local seed capital is needed to foster a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem, our analysis is centered on whether the MicroVC surge, has provided (or may provide) a material impact to these “2nd and 3rd” tier US geographies.
Fortunately, there’s good news for entrepreneurs everywhere. Of all of the Micro-VC funds raised since 2010 (this number includes firms currently raising funds), over 40% of Micro-VC’s formed were based outside of the country’s largest tech centers of SF, LA, NYC and Boston, a number we found quite surprising.
In total, those Micro-VC funds raised outside of the four core tech centers since 2010 represent $6.7B in investable capital, the vast majority of which have driven significant investment dollars in their geographies.
More important to note is that the opportunity in these secondary ecosystems is unequivocally noteworthy. Using M&A activity as an evaluation metric, these ecosystems, despite a relative dearth of funding, have performed quite well:
In each year dating back to 2010, the percentage of Micro-VC funds raised outside of SF, LA, NYC and Boston materially lags the volume of M&A activity, on % basis, in those same areas. This suggest that Micro-VC funds located in secondary markets face less competition — and proportionally more opportunity — for strong financial outcomes by betting on that delta. Now, it’s true that these opportunities are a bit geographically dispersed, however it’s clear that certain cities (Seattle, Boulder, Austin, Salt Lake, Chicago) have made great strides in developing great entrepreneurial talent.
This dislocation in M&A proportionality is of course amplified by the concentration of funds in the Bay Area and NYC. Because coastal deals are more competitive due to an oversupply of capital, they boast higher entry prices (valuations) than do deals in secondary or third tier markets — and the effect on a returns basis may also be material. Case in point: according to Angelist, the mean valuation for deals in Silicon Valley since 2010 is $5.1M. That compares to $4.5M in Chicago, $4M in Indianapolis, and $3.7M in Detroit — offering Midwest investors anywhere from a 10–30% discount at entry.
There are other ways of interpreting the data. One could argue that Bay Area deals deserve to be higher priced due to a premium in the quality of founding teams. Or that the pure volume of M&A in the Bay Area and Boston de-risk the level of returns variance for any particular fund. Those arguments may be with merit but are also balanced by data released by Pitchbook that show cities such as Chicago, Seattle and Washington D.C effectively comparable on a multiple of returns basis:
It is nearly indisputable that large technology companies are being built and enormous value is being created outside of the coastal venture markets: examples include Grubhub, Groupon, Domo, Qualtrics, ExactTarget and HomeAway. But these markets will require more patience for company maturity, a willingness by fund Limited Partners to accept greater short-term volatility, and conviction that key talent will stay in non-core markets due to a desire of staying local and the avoidance of the high cost of living present in the major US tech centers.
While the rhetoric around non-core markets has been historically positive, it appears that the early stage capital surge through Micro-VC funds may be a major factor in these areas actualizing on their potential.
Extra special thanks to Peter Christman for his tireless work in helping to analyze, aggregate and process the data underlying this article.