The United States boasts the largest and most dynamic startup ecosystem in the world, with major hubs like Silicon Valley, New York City, and Boston. This ecosystem is characterized by a strong venture capital presence and a supportive culture for innovation and entrepreneurship. The U.S. continues to lead globally in technological innovation and startup activity, contributing significantly to economic growth and job creation.
As of 2024, the U.S. is home to approximately 77,927 startups. The startup ecosystem is supported by substantial venture capital investments, which totaled around $162.6 billion in 2022. This robust financial backing highlights the confidence investors have in the U.S. startup market, ensuring ample funding for innovation and growth.
Key strengths of the U.S. market include a highly skilled workforce, advanced technological infrastructure, and a culture that encourages risk-taking and entrepreneurship. The presence of major tech companies like Google, Apple, and Facebook fosters a collaborative environment and provides ample opportunities for startups. Additionally, the U.S. government offers support through various grants and tax incentives, such as the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.
Silicon Valley remains the epicenter of innovation, driving advancements in AI, biotechnology, fintech, and clean energy. New York City excels in finance and media, while Boston is strong in biotechnology and education-driven startups. These regions are crucial to the U.S. startup ecosystem, offering a wealth of resources, talent, and opportunities.
Cities like Austin, Denver, and Seattle are emerging as significant tech hubs. These cities provide a favorable business climate, quality of life, and are becoming attractive locations for startups and talent. The rise of remote work has further expanded opportunities for startups to access talent from various regions, contributing to the growth of these emerging hubs.
The U.S. startup market benefits from a comprehensive support system of accelerators, incubators, and co-working spaces. Programs like Techstars and Y Combinator have been instrumental in nurturing early-stage startups, providing mentorship, resources, and funding. These support systems help startups at various stages of their journey to scale and succeed.
Despite its strengths, the U.S. startup ecosystem faces challenges such as high costs of living, regulatory hurdles, and intense competition for talent. These challenges can create barriers for new startups and require strategic navigation to ensure long-term success.
The U.S. startup market features a diverse customer base and a culture that encourages innovation and entrepreneurship. The rise of remote work has expanded opportunities, allowing startups to access talent from various regions. The future outlook remains positive with continuous growth and innovation, driven by emerging technologies such as blockchain, quantum computing, and green energy.
The U.S. startup ecosystem is characterized by its resilience and adaptability. Despite challenges, the ecosystem continues to evolve, driven by a strong culture of entrepreneurship and technological advancements. This ensures the U.S. remains at the forefront of global innovation, contributing significantly to economic growth and job creation.
Seattle / Portland - Menlo Park - California, U.S.A.
Software (Web Marketplace Saas..) • Businesses Solutions • Cloud Services (& Infrastructure)
Partner at Threshold Ventures
Most Interested In
I'm looking for bold founders going after big, audacious ideas. I'm personally passionate about SaaS/cloud, especially business applications.
Not Interested In
I'm not interested in anything related to adtech.
Partner at @dfj, a venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley. Lead our efforts in SaaS and Enterprise IT. Also active in Consumer and Mobile.
New York, U.S.A.
Software (Web Marketplace Saas..) • Media • Education • FinTech (& Financials services) • Retail (& E-Commerce) • Sales (& Marketing) • Advertising
Brian Hirsch is the Founder & Managing Partner of Tribeca Venture Partners
Most Interested In
We are primarily a NY focused firm with over 90% of capital deployed locally.
Brian Hirsch is a Co-Founder and serves as Managing Partner at Tribeca Venture Partners. He is a Board Member at Thinkful. He is also a Board Member at Lendio. Prior to starting Tribeca Venture Partners, Brian was a founder and Managing Director of GSA Venture Partners, formerly the venture arm of Greenhill & Co (NYSE: GHL). Prior to GSAVP, Brian was a Principal at Sterling Venture Partners and a Vice President at ABN AMRO Private Equity. Brian has invested across a broad number of sectors during his career including fintech, edtech, mobile, healthcare, online marketing and media/publishing. Brian has a BA in economics and American studies from Brandeis University. "When I was ten years old while most kids were reading comic books I was reading all of my father's business magazines. I mostly enjoyed reading the long profile stories of entrepreneurs that were building great companies against all odds. It was the 1980's and entrepreneurs like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Scott McNealy and Scott Cook were changing the world through technology. What fascinated me was the process of taking an idea and transforming it into a reality.
Los Angeles - San Francisco Bay Area - New York - California, U.S.A. - Canada
Software (Web Marketplace Saas..) • Education • FinTech (& Financials services) • Retail (& E-Commerce) • Entertainment (& Sports) • CleanTech • A.I. (& Big Data) • Gaming (& eSports) • Future Of Work • Online Social • Consumer
Founding Partner at Forecast Fund
Most Interested In
Current portfolio: Away Luggage, Unmute, Shine Text, Poncho, MealPal, Kang Health
Principal @ Comcast Ventures. Lead CV's NYC seed practice. Formerly: Founder @ FashionStake, Product @ Fab.com, Consultant @ BCG, Author @ HBR.
Oakland - California, U.S.A. - Canada
Software (Web Marketplace Saas..) • Education • BioTech • FinTech (& Financials services) • Woman Focused • Productivity
Dr. Brian Dixon serves as Venture Partner at Elm Street Ventures. He also serves as the Chief Executive Officer of BioRelix, Inc. Prior to joining BioRelix in October 2007, Dr. Dixon served as Vice President with Bayer HealthCare in West Haven Connecticut. In that position, he led a multi-disciplinary organization of up to 130 employees that delivered state-of-the-art expertise in oncology biomarker discovery, new lead discovery, research drug formulation, pharmacokinetics and drug metabolism to Bayer's global R&D business. In addition, he held leadership roles in R&D licensing initiatives, strategic alliances and cross divisional collaborations in translational medicine. From 1998 to 2001, Dr. Dixon directed Bayer drug discovery efforts in both the Osteoporosis and Oncology therapeutic areas. He serves as a Director of BioRelix, Inc. Dr. Dixon was an undergraduate at the University of Michigan. He received his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and completed post-doctoral training at Harvard University.
Menlo Park - San Francisco Bay Area - California, U.S.A.
Software (Web Marketplace Saas..) • Media • Education • Retail (& E-Commerce) • HealthTech (& Fitness) • Gaming (& eSports) • Healthcare (& Wellness) • Nanotechnology • Online Social • Consumer
Partner at Lightspeed
Partner at @lightspeed-venture-partners. Investing in consumer technology startups. AB Harvard, SM MIT, MBA Harvard.
Detroit, U.S.A. - Israel
Software (Web Marketplace Saas..) • Media • Businesses Solutions • FinTech (& Financials services) • A.I. (& Big Data) • Gaming (& eSports) • Cloud Services (& Infrastructure) • Messaging • Online Social • Consumer • Woman Focused
Managing Partner, Ludlow Ventures
Managing Partner, Ludlow Ventures
Jonathon Triest is the Founder and serves as Managing Partner at Ludlow Ventures. In 2011, he was awarded the Crain's Detroit Business award for 20 in their 20's. That same year, he co-founded Funded by Night, a vehicle to help internet startups launch and get discovered. Previously, he served as creative director for New York's Discovery Productions. In 2005 he launched the Atlanta-based Triest Group, a mid-level advertising firm. In addition to his role at Ludlow, he is a mentor at The Brandery and a board member of The Trico Foundation, and Venture for America. previously creative director for New Yorks Discovery Productions. In 2005 he launched Triest Group, a mid-level advertising firm. He sits on the Board of the Trico Foundation and the Board of Investors for Venture for America.
San Francisco Bay Area, U.S.A.
Software (Web Marketplace Saas..) • Businesses Solutions • Retail (& E-Commerce) • Cloud Services (& Infrastructure) • Local commerce
Jason Pressman is a Co- Founder and serves as Managing Director & Partner at Shasta Ventures. He also is an Angel Investor. He serves as the Board of Directors at Deep Sentinel. He leads the enterprise practice at Shasta Ventures and invests across a range of sectors including enterprise software, SaaS, cloud and consumer services. A company builder who played an integral role in the development of one of today's largest online businesses, Jason acts as a thought partner, advocate and counselor to entrepreneurs looking to take their companies from initial proof of product-market fit to industry dominance. As a partner at Shasta, Jason has been an active investor in cloud computing, with an emphasis on next-generation applications, systems management and open source software. His previous investments include Makara (acquired by RedHat) and iConclude (acquired by Opsware). Jason currently serves on the boards of application performance management startup Crittercism, Scala open source software platform Typesafe and SaaS subscription billing company Zuora, as well as local social guide Nextdoor and mobile platform Smule. Prior to joining Shasta in 2005, Jason was Vice President, Strategy and Operations at venture-backed Walmart.com, where he took the online retailer from zero to large scale revenue in five years. His experience growing that business into one of largest retailers online informs his understanding of how to thoughtfully scale fast-growing businesses, as well as how to use software to improve operations. Previously, Jason worked as an investment banker to venture-backed companies at Alex.Brown. Jason earned an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business and a BS in Finance from University of Maryland.
Boston - Massachusetts, U.S.A.
Software (Web Marketplace Saas..) • FinTech (& Financials services) • Hardware (& Manufacturing) • Consumer
Co-Founder & Partner, NextView Ventures
NextView Ventures is a seed stage venture capital firm focused on internet enabled innovation. The founders' backgrounds combine both operating and entrepreneurial experience at leading internet properties and institutional investing experience at leading venture capital firms. Although the firm operated in stealth mode for several months, NextView has assembled a portfolio of seed stage investments in 'internet enabled innovation.' The investments span a range of rapidly growing sectors including consumer internet, SaaS, and technology-enabled services. NextView will typically invest $250K - $500K in seed financings with a total round size between a few hundred thousand dollars to a couple million. The firm will invest in the best opportunities regardless of geography, focuses mainly on the U.S. east coast. In July of 2014, NextView closed its second fund, NextView Ventures II at $40M.
New York, U.S.A.
Software (Web Marketplace Saas..) • Businesses Solutions • Retail (& E-Commerce) • HealthTech (& Fitness) • Blockchain (& Cryptos) • Gaming (& eSports) • Developer tools • Healthcare (& Wellness) • Online Social • Consumer
Partner, Investment Committee at TCG (The Chernin Group) | Kauffman Fellow
Series A VC (and beyond)
Marco DeMeireles serves as Principal & Head of Private Investments at Balyasny Asset Management. He is focused on public and private technology investments across Consumer Internet, Digital Media, Enterprise Software, HCIT and IT Infrastructure businesses globally. He attended Williams College where he graduated with a degree in Economics and Leadership studies. At BAM, Marco's investment experience spans Venture Capital, Growth Equity, Public Equities (equity long/short) and personal LP investments into leading fund managers. He has sourced and led the Firm's investments in Avant, Cuebiq, Orbital Insight, Outcome Health (fka ContextMedia), and Peloton where he serves as Balyasny's shareholder representative. Prior to joining BAM, Marco was with Technology Crossover Ventures, focused on growth stage investments, and began his career in Morgan Stanley's Investment Banking Division advising Technology clients based in Menlo Park. While at Morgan Stanley, Marco worked with companies in the storage, hardware, software, security, digital media and consumer internet sectors on a variety of transactions including public equity offerings (Palo Alto Networks), debt financings (Rovi, HP), leveraged buyouts (Dell/Quest) and strategic M&A assignments (Cisco/Meraki).
San Francisco Bay Area - Palo Alto, U.S.A.
Software (Web Marketplace Saas..) • Media • Education • Businesses Solutions • Retail (& E-Commerce) • IoT (& Wearables) • A.I. (& Big Data) • Cloud Services (& Infrastructure) • Online Social • Consumer
Niko Bonatsos serves as a Managing Director at General Catalyst. Previously, he served as a Venture Partner at General Catalyst Partners. He serves as a Board Member at 6D.ai. He focuses on investments in consumer Internet, cloud computing and mobile. He worked on lean manufacturing for Yokogawa Electric Corp, biomedical signal processing at Harvard Medical School/MGH, cloud computing at Stanford University and as a founding team member of myLinkpower, a social networking start-up. He is a graduate of Stanford University, earning an M.S. in Management Science and Engineering as a Fulbright Scholar; the University of Cambridge, earning an M.Phil. in Manufacturing Engineering and Management; and the National Technical University of Athens, earning an engineer's degree (Dipl.-Ing) in Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Menlo Park - Redwood City - California, U.S.A. - India
Software (Web Marketplace Saas..) • Businesses Solutions • Cloud Services (& Infrastructure) • Medical Devices (& Hospital Services) • Healthcare (& Wellness) • Online Social • Consumer
Founder, Managing Director, Lightspeed Venture Partners
Ravi Mhatre serves as Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. He serves as Board Member at Cloudpassage and Exabeam. Ravi is also a Co-Founder and serves as Partner and Managing Director at Lightspeed India Partners Advisors. He is also a Board Observer at Natera. His current investments include Nutanix, Appdynamics, Natera, Mulesoft, Sailpoint, Edgespring, TheFind and Kixeye. He has also served as a board member or board observer for numerous successful venture-backed companies including net.Genesis (NTGX), Verio (VRIO), Qubole, Riverbed (RVBD), Lifeminders (LFMN), Kosmix (acquired by Walmart), TutorVista (acquired by Pearson), Virsa (acquired by SAP), Waveset (acquired by Oracle), Rapsphere (acquired by Appsense), Masergy (acquired by Abry) and Webspective (acquired by Inktomi), and has been recognized on the Forbes Midas List of top venture capital investors. Ravi has also served on the Board of Directors of TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs Forum) in Silicon Valley, as a VC advisory board member to DeVenCI, the Department of Defense's start-up technology acquisition forum, and as a judge for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year competition. Ravi holds a BS in Electrical Engineering and a BA in Economics from Stanford University and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.