The city’s startup scene is thriving; “winning the war,” as Boston Mayor Thomas Menino might say. The East Coast-West Coast rivalry is dissipating, the argument becoming exhaustive, at best—largely because it’s shortsighted.
Boston’s brimming with an entrepreneurial energy and intellectual curiosity that’s rooted in decades of history. The lasting strength of the city’s innovation scene is unparalleled, and we’re setting out to highlight just that.
Introducing the “Boston Tech Timeline,” a visual representation of the tech scene’s history, highlighting the various founding stories, financings, IPOs, acquisitions and transitions that have made the city what is is today.
To create the Boston Tech Timeline, we want to hear from you—the community who’s helped turn the city’s ecosystem into the hotbed of innovation it is today. What milestones do you think have defined Boston’s tech scene over the decades?
Over the next month, we’ll be spotlighting your input via various posts, as well as transforming it into a visual representation of where we started and how far we’ve come.
Take the founding of Upromise in 2000. The Brookline-born savings network secured more than $34 million in Series A financing—an amount Flybridge General Partner Jeff Bussgang, a Upromise co-founder, describes as “one of the largest in history in Boston and beyond.”
“Upromise was an anchor B2C company in the Internet 1.0 era,” Bussgang told BostInno, noting that several of Upromise’s former executives have gone on to start other companies. Michael Bronner helped launch UNREAL Candy; Sheila Marcelo, Donna Levin and Dave Krupinski went on to co-found Care.com.
Or how about when Techstars expanded to Boston in 2009, a move made after Y Combinator left Cambridge to set up shop in Silicon Valley? The last five Techstars Boston classes have collectively raised more than $80 million and hired more than 350 employees.
What other milestones deserve the spotlight? Submit your input below if you would like to be included in our upcoming content.
