The following was co-authored by Ezra Galston of Chicago Ventures (@ezramogee) and Samir Kaji (@samirkaji) of First Republic Bank. Please follow me samir kaji on Twitter and Medium for my thoughts on the world of venture capital. Over the last several years much has been made of the opportunity, or perceived lack thereof in technology centers outside of the Bay Area and NYC. From Steve Case’s Rise of The Rest Tour, to Google for Entrepreneurs, to Brad Feld’s Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem , the discussion has consistently been overwhelmingly positive. It’s easy to understand the stance as who wouldn’t want to support entrepreneurship, irrespective of geography? However, it’s hard to discern whether these opinions were borne out of a utopian desire or a sincere belief of true financial viability in markets outside of NYC and the Bay Area. In Fred Wilson’s widely discussed (and debated) piece “Second and Third Tier Markets and Beyond,” he suggested that the opportunity outside of the Bay Area was significant, citing the successes of USV in New York, Upfront Ventures in LA and Foundry Group in Boulder: “The truth is you can build a startup in almost any city in the US today. But it is harder. Harder to build the team. Harder to get customers. Harder to get attention. And harder to raise capital. Which is a huge opportunity for VCs who are willing to get on planes or cars and get to these places. There is a supremacism that exists in the first and second tiers of the startup world. I find it annoying and always have. So waking up in a place like Nashville feels really good to me. It is a reminder that entrepreneurs exist everywhere and that is a wonderful thing.” In an effort to move past anecdotes however, we wanted to explore one of the components that helps drive and catalyze early entrepreneurial activity in any localized geography — the availability of early stage funding. Simply put, non-core US tech hubs are reliant on local early stage capital to subsist since seed stage fund sizes often make remote investing impractical (by contrast growth stage investors who manage large funds and have significant resources can easily invest in breakout companies outside their region). With the hypothesis that quality local seed capital is needed to foster a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem, our analysis is centered on whether the MicroVC surge, has provided (or may provide) a material impact to these “2nd and 3rd” tier US geographies. Fortunately, there’s good news for entrepreneurs everywhere. Of all of the Micro-VC funds raised since 2010 (this number includes firms currently raising funds), over 40% of Micro-VC’s formed were based outside of the...

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