We’ve been investing in enterprise tech startups since our launch in 2013 and for the past several years, we’ve been tracking our local NYC enterprise ecosystem’s growth.

See our most recent report on 2H funding 👉 here

While the world faced an unprecedented global health pandemic and economic crisis in 2020, digital transformation took a front seat in the enterprise and enterprise software startups have been a key enabler of this transformation. Now all signs clearly demonstrate that despite COVID-19, 2020 was the best year yet for enterprise tech in NYC 🔥🔥🔥

In this report, you’ll find funding trends, exit activity, and the local NYC pipeline of both unicorns primed for large exits and a “Next Guard” list of startups on the cusp of themselves becoming unicorns.

Some key findings:

  • Since 2014, NYC enterprise tech startups have raised $16.7B in VC funding across 696 deals. $5.8B was raised in 2020 in 189 deals, which far outpaces the $3.3B raised in 2019 in 113 deals.
  • The unicorn pipeline expanded to 17 companies in 2H 2020, compared to 10 in the 1H 2020. Newcomers to the group include Attentive, Cockroach Labs, Unqork, and others.
  • Exit activity in 2H 2020 was robust at $5.5B, including Kustomer (acquired by Facebook for $1B), AvePoint ($2B SPAC), and others.
  • There are 26 next guard companies that have raised >$100M and/or are valued >$500M.

What’s exciting is that we no longer need to discuss NYC enterprise tech in relation to Silicon Valley. Rather, NYC is the clear #2 enterprise tech ecosystem in the US, and with strengths in our own right (eg. the ability for startups to build alongside their Fortune 500 customers), we’re positioned for an exciting decade to come.

PS — If you’d like to check out the underlying data for yourself, check out our public NYC Enterprise Funding Database. The database records every single financing from 2014–2020 for NYC enterprise startups, and for each financing we include the company name, amount raised, and the funding round.

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