The Big Apple’s tech scene is getting seedier.
Venture-capital flow to New York has dropped to about half of what it was this time last year, but investors are still writing checks to the same number of companies — just in smaller amounts, and more of them are brand-new, according to a recent analysis.
In the third quarter of 2011, VCs sank a whopping $831 million into 86 companies in New York state, almost all of them in Gotham, according to CB Insights. This fall, a more modest $489 million has gone to another 86 budding firms, including 75 in Manhattan, four in Brooklyn, one in The Bronx and one on Long Island.
The report found 49 percent of investments were made as seed money, up from just 15 percent in the third quarter of 2011. The median seed deal in the Apple was $1 million, part of a 9 percent upswing nationally in seed funding.
“The funding in any quarter is often driven by a few megadeals, large, $100 million-plus deals, so the absence of those in any particular quarter can draw things down. That is what we saw in Q3,” said Anand Sawal, CB Insights co-founder.
“This drives up the deal volume, but since the funding is small, the amount of funding can move down,” he added.
Big winners this quarter included fab.com, a shopping site; warbyparker.com, a custom-glasses retailer; and quirky.com, a service that assists investors in bringing their products to market.
Overall, the Web took first place, with 68 percent of deals, and 76 percent of cash, going to companies that operate online.
Taking the second spot in the share of the 86 deals were mobile and telecommunications ventures, at 15 percent. The runner-up for cash was the health-care sector, at 11 percent, buoyed by a $30 million August investment in Intercept Pharmaceuticals, which went public last month.
California, New York and Massachusetts remain the “holy trinity” of tech investment, but the seed volume of venture capital is good news for the city’s nerds.
“Silicon Alley is doing well,” Anand said. “Lots of seed deals happening in NYC — more than other geographies.”