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.
San Francisco Bay Area, U.S.A.
A.I. (& Big Data) • Web Security (& Privacy) • Cloud Services (& Infrastructure) • Developer tools • Future Of Work
Venture Capitalist and Company-Builder at Greylock
Sarah Guo serves as General Partner at Greylock Partners. She also serves as Board Observer and Board Member at Skyhigh Networks. She served as Board Observer & Board Member at Avi Networks. She focuses on B2B applications and infrastructure, cyber security, artificial intelligence, augmented reality and healthcare, joined the firm in 2013. She is on the board of three companies as a representative of Greylock, including Obsidian Security. She joined Greylock in 2013. She serves as a Board of Director at Obsidian Security. She is excited by entrepreneurs that understand a cloudy and mobile world, and are remaking the landscape of enterprise IT infrastructure and software. She is also interested in drones, the connected home, wearables, robotics, 3-D printing, and software innovations in the healthcare and financial industries. Prior to Greylock, Guo was at Goldman Sachs, where she invested in Dropbox and helped take Workday public. She advised pre-IPO private technology companies (as well as public clients including Zynga, Netflix and Nvidia) on strategic and financial issues. Previously, she worked with Casa Systems, a venture-funded startup that enables cable operators to meet growing demand for broadband services. Sarah has four degrees from the Wharton School and the University of Pennsylvania. She is a Lauder Institute Fellow and a graduate of the Huntsman Program. She is an advocate for STEM education for women and the underserved, as well as education more generally. She has taught Marketing in the Wharton Undergraduate Program and served as a teaching fellow in lower-income high schools for the Philadelphia World Affairs Council.
Austin Texas - London - New York City (NY) - Cambridge Massachusetts - Chicago Illinois - Boston Massachusetts - Portland Oregon - San Antonio Texas - Seattle Washington - Atlanta Georgia - Los Angeles California - Washington D.C, U.S.A.
A.I. (& Big Data) • Cloud Services (& Infrastructure) • Developer tools
Jason Seats serves as Managing Partner at Techstars. Jason was most recently the Managing Director of the Techstars programs in Austin and Cloud in San Antonio. Prior to joining Techstars, Jason was a Founder of Slicehost, an early cloud computing hosting company. In 2008 Slicehost was acquired by Rackspace and became the core for the initial Cloud Servers product. Jason continued on at Rackspace until 2010 as VP of software development for Rackspace Cloud, managing the cloud engineering tea Jason has a B.S. in Computer Science and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Parks College of Engineering, Aviation and Technology at Saint Louis University. He is also an Angel Investor. He also serves as Board Member at Convey and DigitalOcean.
Palo Alto - California, U.S.A.
Sales (& Marketing) • IoT (& Wearables) • CleanTech • A.I. (& Big Data) • Web Security (& Privacy) • Gaming (& eSports) • Cloud Services (& Infrastructure) • Developer tools • Woman Focused
Ullas Naik is the Founder and serves as General Partner at Streamlined Ventures. Naik founded Streamlined Ventures with a vision of building a thought leading investment platform rooted in the philosophical belief that founders of companies are the true heroes of entrepreneurial value creation in our society. Streamlined Ventures invests in and supports visionary founders working on transformational application and business infrastructure software companies for the Mobile Web, Social Web, Web and Enterprise markets. Ullas is a seasoned venture capitalist, angel investor and entrepreneur with over two decades of entrepreneurial and early stage investment experience across 300 companies. Prior to founding Streamlined Ventures, he co-founded investment firm Cota Capital. Prior to that, Ullas was a senior member of the investment team for 12 years at Globespan Capital and helped build the firm. He has also been an active angel investor over the last 21 years during which he invested in over 60 companies spanning Internet 1.0, Web 2.0, mobile web, social web, enterprise computing as well as disruptive technologies in other domains such as robotics and wearable computing. Before his institutional investing career Ullas was a top ranked Wall Street research analyst at FAC Equities/First Albany. He was recognized by the Wall Street Journal and Fortune Magazine as a Wall Street All Star. Prior to that, Ullas received an MBA degree after starting a chemicals trading business in India. He also has a bachelor's degree in organic chemistry. He is also an Angel Investor.
San Francisco Bay Area - Palo Alto - California, U.S.A.
FinTech (& Financials services) • Hardware (& Manufacturing) • A.I. (& Big Data) • Web Security (& Privacy) • Analytics • Cloud Services (& Infrastructure)
Chief Engineer, Engineering Capital
Ashmeet Sidana serves as Founder & Chief Engineer at Engineering Capital. His experience includes managing venture capital funds, serving on multiple Boards of Directors, and helping build the industry leading products VMware ESX Server and Silicon Graphics WebFORCE. Before his last decade as a venture capitalist, Ashmeet was an operating executive with hands-on operating experience as a CEO and entrepreneur. Ashmeet came to venture from VMware, where he ran product management for their flagship product-ESX Server. Before VMware, Ashmeet was the Founder and CEO of Sidana Systems, Inc. He started his career at Hewlett Packard and Silicon Graphics as an engineer. Ashmeet's previous investments include Azure (NYSE: AZRE), Palerra (acquired by Oracle), Freewheel (acquired by Comcast), InQuira (acquired by Oracle), Altor (acquired by Juniper), Appurify (acquired by Google), PrivateCore (acquired by Facebook) and StackStorm (acquired by Brocade). He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Baffle, RuperBot, Sail Internet, vFunction and Xockets. His current investments include Baffle, Binaris, Rubrik, Diamanti, Gyroscope, Kentik, Menlo Security, Netsil, Nexla, Prismo Systems, RuperBot, Sail Internet, SignalFx, vFunction, Xockets and YotaScale. Ashmeet received an MBA from Wharton, MS in Computer Science from Stanford University and a BS in Computer Science summa cum laude from USC.
San Francisco Bay Area - Boston / New - Chicago - Atlanta - Salt Lake City - Seattle / Portland - Austin - Palo Alto - California, U.S.A. - Canada
Software (Web Marketplace Saas..) • Hardware (& Manufacturing) • IoT (& Wearables) • A.I. (& Big Data) • HealthTech (& Fitness) • Cloud Services (& Infrastructure) • Developer tools • Woman Focused
Most Interested In
Saas/B2B/Enterprise Software, Connected Devices (consumer and industrial), B2B/B2C Marketplaces,... and then what other people consider crazy in frontier tech: AI, AR/VR, SpaceTech, Robotics, Autonomous infrastructure,..
Not Interested In
Pureplay consumer apps that may never build a business, gaming, e-commerce, travel, crypto
New York, U.S.A.
Businesses Solutions • FinTech (& Financials services) • Cloud Services (& Infrastructure)
Vice President at Hanaco Ventures
David Frankel is an Angel Investor. Previously, he was a Co-Founder and the Chief Executive Officer with Internet Solutions. He sits on the board of many companies and has years of experience in early investing. He was a Board Member at Top10 Group.
Menlo Park - California, U.S.A.
Software (Web Marketplace Saas..) • Businesses Solutions • FinTech (& Financials services) • Retail (& E-Commerce) • Sales (& Marketing) • Web Security (& Privacy) • Cloud Services (& Infrastructure) • Payments • Online Social • Woman Focused
Venture Capitalist
Most Interested In
For my personal angel investing: category creators with defensible business models. For my DTCP investing: Enterprise SaaS and recurring revenue businesses who are past $10m ARR and interested in doing more business in Europe.
Not Interested In
Whatever category the venture echo chamber has declared "hot" right now.
Austin - Texas, U.S.A.
Web Security (& Privacy) • Cloud Services (& Infrastructure) • Developer tools
Co-Founder / Chief Security Officer at Signal Sciences, Author of Building a Modern Security Program (O'Reilly Media)
Mr. Zane Lackey serves as a Co-Founder & Chief Scientific Officer at Signal Sciences. He serves as Advisor of Panther (Network Management Software). He serves as Advisor of Remediant. He was previously the cofounder and chief security officer of Signal Sciences, which was acquired by Fastly for $775 million in 2020, and the author of Building a Modern Security Program. Prior to Signal Sciences, he led security and infrastructure teams as the CISO of Etsy, and started his career as an early security consultant at iSEC Partners. He holds a BA in Economics with a minor in Computer Science from UC Davis.
Berkeley - California, U.S.A.
Businesses Solutions • Cloud Services (& Infrastructure)
CEO at Box - The Content Cloud
Mr. Aaron Levie is a Co-Founder of Box and serves as its Chief Executive Officer. He served as Board Member and Advisor at Helium. He previously served as an Advisor at Formation Data Systems. He is the visionary behind the Box product and platform strategy, incorporating the best of secure content collaboration with an intuitive user experience suited to the way people work today. Aaron leads the company in its mission to transform the way people and businesses work so they can achieve their greatest ambitions. He has served on the Board of Directors since April 2005. Aaron attended the University of Southern California from 2003 to 2005 before leaving to found Box. He also serves as an Advisor at 8VC. He serves as Board Member and Advisor at Helium.