Goodbye, Wall Street. Hello, Start-Up!
The world is a-changing, the economic landscape is re-aligning. No doubt about it. In the days of the economic downturn, Wall Street had been handing out pink slips to workers – now you have three workers who have given Wall Street the pink slip!
Puneet Mehta was a SVP with Citi Capital Markets, Archana Patchirajan was a senior consultant with the same company; and Sonpreet Bhatia was a vice president at Merrill Lynch/Bank of America.
Now why would people throw up hard-to-get, prestigious jobs in the financial sector and go off into the unknown? They’ve heard the siren song of ‘entrepreneurship’ and their grand dream is being funded by venture capital and endorsed by none less than Mayor Bloomberg!
Last year Mehta, Patchirajan and Bhatia, who hail from India, were the winners of the NYC BigApps competiton with their entry, NYCWay and formed the company MyCityWay.
- MyCityWay
This is the first company to be seeded by the $ 22 million fund which is to be managed by FirstMark Capital to provide promising New York City-based technology startup companies with early-stage capital. New York City Economic Development Corporation contributed $3 million to establish the fund, and FirstMark Capital, a leading New York City-based venture capital firm, will contribute up to an additional $19 million.
This is good news indeed for budding East Coast entrepreneurs and is the first fund of its kind outside Silicon Valley. The latter has been incubator to hundreds of start-ups – now maybe it’s Silicon Alley’s turn to develop successful and innovative new companies.
“We’ve long said that New York City is a breeding ground for new and innovative companies and there’s no better place for them to succeed than here. Now we’re putting our money where our mouth is,” said Mayor Bloomberg.
“To spur entrepreneurship in New York City, we’re already providing start-ups with specialized training, physical space and tax breaks, and now we’re adding capital investments to go along with it. We expected our anchor contribution of $3 million to solicit roughly $9 million from the private sector, but FirstMark Capital is putting in more than double that, a great sign both for the success of our initiative and for the growth prospects of investment-worthy start-ups in the City.”
As Deputy Mayor for Economic Development has pointed out, there is significant venture capital available in New York City but funding for startups in the early stages of development is hard to come by, and the NYC Entrepreneurial Fund was created to bridge that gap.
Wall Street’s loss is indeed entrepreneurship’s gain. MyCityWay’s fairy-tale with a happy ending began last year when the three would-be entrepreneurs were still at their regular 9 to 5 jobs. MyCityWay had been launched almost as a dream, a fun project done while coping with their real jobs. They entered their creation in NYC Big Apps Competition in Dec 2009 where it became the only app to win three awards, including Popular choice and Investors’ Choice. You can read the whole story here.
Since then the three entrepreneurs decided to follow their passion, and actually took the hard step of closing the door on Wall Street. Two of them left even before any financial commitment was on hand, and a third left once the funding became a reality.
Knowing the high repute that Indian parents hold financial jobs in, leaving Wall Street must have been a difficult decision. They threw themselves full swing into creating mini virtual worlds, realizing that it was a concept totally suited to today’s changed landscape with its increasing importance on virtual realities and niche markets.
“After we launched NYC Way, we received a ton of requests to do a similar app for other cities. Most of these requests came from people who used NYC Way during a business or personal visit to NYC,” says Archana Patchirajan. “We then starting researching other cities to see what kind of data was available from the government and otherwise. During our research, we spoke both to people who had lived in these cities for many years and also to visitors going there for the first time.”
They then created one-stop location aware city apps for all these cities. They now have presence in NYC, Washington DC, San Francisco, LA, Las Vegas, Boston and London, and are planning to be in 40 cities across the world in the next 120 days.
The fairy tale continues – The trio now has an office in Chelsea, Manhattan and a sizable amount to make this project succeed. “We are working to be in 40 major cities across the world in the next 120 days,” says Puneet Mehta. “We are also well into building out a revolutionary mobile platform for major cities in India.”
To make the app as valuable as possible, the group is considering hiring local curators who would make sure that the apps have a local flavor to them – so that the residents can relate to it easily, and the visitors feel that they are being guided by a local.
So what gives them the most pleasure in this venture?
“The greatest satisfaction is to know that we are making a difference in people’s lives,” says Mehta. “ We have received emails where people have told us how they discovered something new in the city and it cheered them up, how this app makes their commute easier by having transit alerts with them, how looking at live traffic cameras helps them get to alternate routes – in turn reducing traffic and pollution….and so much more. We are doing this to truly transform cities across the world.”
And yes, it’s improved their own lives too! Eating passion for breakfast, lunch and dinner is an exciting way to live. “We look forward to a new day every day, in building your city, your way,” says Sonpreet Bhatia. The three entrepreneurs have 15 years of technology experience between them, and are looking to make people’s lives easier and more fun with their innovations.
Seed Money for Entrepreneurs. Maybe for You?
Up to $22 Million Available for New York City-Based Technology Startup Companies to Help Spur Entrepreneurship and Create Jobs in the City
There is definitely a new wind blowing with more encouragement for new entrepreneurs, and Mayor Bloomberg, who is the New York’s biggest entrepreneurial success story, has set in motion procedures which may help other strugglers and strivers create new and innovative startups.
“New York City is the ideal place to build our business,” says MyCityWay Co-founder Puneet Mehta. “By taking advantage of programs like the BigApps Competition and the NYC Entrepreneurial Fund, we’ve been able to capture significant market visibility and achieve rapid growth in a very short time period. As an integral figure in the New York City investment and entrepreneurial community, FirstMark Capital and its seasoned team of professionals will help us tap into the City’s world-class resources and ensure the lasting success of MyCityWay.”
The NYC Entrepreneurial Fund was established with $3 million of capital from New York City Economic Development Corporation. It will invest in early-stage and potential follow-on investments with FirstMark Capital, which will contribute up to an additional $19 million. FirstMark Capital will provide the industry insight, proprietary relationships and operational expertise needed to ensure the seeded companies reach their ultimate potential. It will be responsible for sourcing and evaluating potential investments, negotiating terms and conditions, and closing each seed investment; it will monitor the performance of the companies in which its funds and the NYC Entrepreneurial Fund are invested; and it will actively work with other leading venture firms and seed investors in New York City to co-invest in these opportunities. Interested companies and entrepreneurs can apply online at http://www.firstmarkcap.com/firststeps.
The NYC Entrepreneurial Fund is one of a series of City-sponsored programs launched by the Bloomberg Administration to support entrepreneurship and encourage start-up companies to locate and grow in New York City. The City has announced five business incubators, with two more expected to launch by the end of 2010. In addition, the City has established JumpStart and FastTrac training programs to help emerging entrepreneurs start new businesses, grow their businesses, or transition to new sectors; launched the NYC Next Idea global business plan competition; and worked to eliminate the Unincorporated Business Tax, reducing the liability for partnerships and sole proprietors for more than 17,000 New York City-based small businesses.
(Source: NYC.Gov)
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