East Coast v. West Coast

By Guest Author

By Carla

In case you all missed it, New England Web 2.0 companies are raising big bucks and overshadowing our West Coast friends. Comparatively, New England raised $11.5 million more than San Francisco in the first half of 2007, which in the grand scheme of things isn’t going to turn Boston into the technology hub overnight. 

Silicon Valley has earned its reputation for a reason. Surviving the dot-com bubble, the area hosts thousands of tech companies including household names Google, Apple, eBay, Yahoo! and AMD. What is promising for the New England area is the amount of growth it has experienced year over year. In 2006, the region brought in $62 million, while it had already amassed more than $102 million by mid-2007.

Not that Bostonians should become overly giddy—we’ve missed a chance or two to make Boston the home of some of the biggest technology companies. When Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin first looked to Battery Ventures in Waltham for financing for their social networking site with 1,000 or so users, they were turned down. And now the Palo Alto-based company is worth as much as $6 billion.

But not to worry, Boston has plenty of start-ups developing technologies to keep those Googlers on its toes. With the energy and nanotechnology sectors heating up, Boston definitely has a fair shot at rising above the Valley and it’s clear that the venture capital exists to fund innovative new companies.

Add comment October 2nd, 2007