, Columnist
Venture Capital Needs Some Geographic Diversity
Moving out of Silicon Valley would do other parts of the U.S. some good, and maybe yield higher returns.
Be original.
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The U.S. high technology industry looks like it may be too concentrated. One sign of this is the lack of geographic diversity in the venture capital industry, which is highly concentrated in a few technology hubs, mostly on the coasts:
In 2017, three metro areas — San Francisco, New York and San Jose, California — took about two-thirds of the investment for the top 20 cities. Their share of the top 10 cities has actually increased since 2015, driven in part by super-sized late-stage financing rounds for companies like WeWork Inc., Uber Technologies Inc., and Lyft Inc.