I spent the past few days celebrating the city’s startup ecosystem. Did you know that, of the top ten companies on CNBC’s latest disruptor list, four are based in New York, three are from China, and just one (AirBnB) is from the Bay Area? Software is, indeed, eating the world and creating opportunities everywhere.

New York is very special to me. It is the place where I found myself as a writer and as a man. I finally found a place to belong.  While I live in San Francisco, unlike Tony Bennett, I left my heart in the Big Apple. 

Why was I there this week? Our firm, True Ventures, hosted our annual meeting with our investors in New York, mostly because of the city’s growing importance to our group. As my partner, Jon Callaghan, often says, we have to go where our customers are — and our entrepreneurs in New York are well worth the trip.

At present, we have 15 active investments in New York, representing 9 percent of our current total. While the overall percentage of companies might sound small, these are heavyweights Nearly 21 percent of our invested dollars are in our New York companies. Most importantly (this is the stat that makes me the happiest), they employ 2,600 people, which is 29 percent of the total employed by our companies across the world.

Not bad for a firm with no New York office! And we are not done yet — we are always looking to find those who push our imagination and make us look beyond the obvious.

This first appeared on my May 19, 2019, weekly newsletter. If you like to get this delivered to your inbox, just sign-up here, and I will take care of the rest.