When Alex Iskold became the managing director of Techstars New York, he came armed with a secret weapon: a script he had written that crawls the web for new startups and assesses whether or not they’d be a good fit for the Big Apple incarnation of this burgeoning tech accelerator.
Just what those metrics are, Iskold isn't saying. "I don’t want to give out all of our tricks," he says, laughing. But it's not too hard to figure out what Iskold is looking for. A serial entrepreneur himself, he has founded and sold two companies, including, most recently, GetGlue, a television social network. Now, at the helm of one of New York City’s largest tech accelerators, this engineer by training is on a mission to bring what he calls "heavy tech" to New York City.1
If Techstars can help build these heavy tech companies, Iskold believes, the engineers will come. The aim, ultimately, is to turn New York into a true tech hub. That will take some doing, but Iskold's work is part of a much larger effort to bring more tech minds to New York, a city that leads the world in so many things but trails places like Boston and Silicon Valley in terms of engineering talent.
Technology Is The Business
Iskold defines "heavy tech" companies as any business for which the technology itself is the primary reason for being. As examples, he lists New York City success stories like MongoDB, an open-source NoSQL database; MakerBot, a 3-D printing company, and Digital Ocean, a cloud hosting service and Techstars graduate. "With, say, e-commerce and finance startups, tech supports the business," he says, "but with companies like MongoDB, Digital Ocean, and even MakerBot, the technology is the business."
Some such companies appeared in Techstars’ most recent batch of startups, the first that Iskold had a hand in selecting. Beside the consumer products and apps were companies like Tutum, a cloud infrastructure outfit that hosts applications packaged in Docker containers. Another startup, Standard Analytics, has created a massive database of scientific information that transforms scientific articles into standard API to make research searchable and replicable. Still another company, Rival Theory, uses artificial intelligence to design emotionally intelligent characters for gaming. Such big, technologically challenging ideas might not fit the standard New York City tech archetype, but Iskold is determined to change that.
An Engineering Firehose
He's not alone. In recent years, both local New York government and universities have been working toward much the same goal, which is precisely why Iskold says now is the time to begin fostering more engineering intensive companies. Unlike Boston, where MIT engineers are plentiful, and the Valley, which is a stone's throw from Stanford's engineering school, New York's universities have never been a firehose of engineering talent. Instead, schools like Columbia and New York University, have traditionally been better known for their arts and business programs.
Now, that's starting to change. NYU, for one, recently finalized its merger with Polytechnic University and opened the NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering. Meanwhile, construction is now underway for the Cornell NYC Tech campus, which is set to open in 2017. "That's going to be firepower," Iskold says.
Still, despite his enthusiasm about these new developments, Iskold knows it will take years, and perhaps even a decade or more, to transform New York City into a true tech center. Silicon Valley investors, for one, still have the deepest pockets. And yet, he knows that the only way to grow the venture capital community in New York, is to build worthy companies first. "It's a chicken or egg problem," Iskold says. "In the Valley, you had the PayPal mafia and other people from 20 years ago with successful exits, who then became angels, and funded other companies. It's a virtuous cycle."
1Correction 10:52 EST 08/29/14: An earlier version of the story incorrectly stated the number of companies Iskold has sold. He has sold two.
