Venture capital database CB Insights has published its 2014 Global Tech Exits Report, which documents the number of startups that exited, that is, went public or were acquired, last year. As it did in 2013, New York came in second among U.S. states with 158 exits, behind only perennial leader California, which recorded 523. The Empire State warded off third-place Massachusetts, with 113.
New York's biggest exit was loan financing platform OnDeck, which went public on December 17 and raised $200 million, being valued at approximately $1.3 billion. Other significant deals were the acquisition of mobile and tablet retargeting company TapCommerce by Twitter and the IPO of digital media company Everyday Health, each worth about $100 million.
Prospects are good for the market to stay active in 2015, starting with the IPO of popular crafts e-commerce site Etsy, which is expected to raise about $300 million sometime during the first quarter. Funding has been increasing for established companies and the number of startups that are being valued at or above $1 billion is also on the rise.
"Prospects are good for the market to stay active in 2015."
"There are a lot more high-value startups now, and with that we could see an increasing number of venture-capital-backed exits, and bigger exits than we've seen before," said CB Insights analyst Michael Dempsey. "Two years ago, [the $1.1 billion sale of ] Tumblr was a big moment for New York. I think you're going to be seeing that a lot more frequently moving forward."
While California will continue to dominate the tech landscape in the near future, states like Massachusetts and New York have developed environments in which software developing companies can thrive and find major financial success.