- New York City's ambition to become the global leader in the cybersecurity industry came a little closer to realization with the opening of the JVP International NYC Cyber Center on Monday.
- The city partnered with Israeli venture capital firm Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP) to establish a Soho-based hub for cybersecurity-focused startups looking to recruit, network, and scale up.
- 28 startups are currently housed within the center, offering products and services that range from fighting financial cybercrime to monitoring baby sleep patterns.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
For the past two years, New York City has been pushing an initiative to leapfrog Silicon Valley - and the rest of the world's leading tech hubs - in one particular industry: cybersecurity.
And with the opening of the city's Soho-based international cybersecurity center on Monday, New York just moved one step closer to realizing its ambitions. With the help of Israeli venture capital firm Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP), 28 companies - already occupying five floors in the building - are scaling within the center and using its resources to recruit talent and meet potential clients.
"To us, this center is a great opportunity to take companies with promising ideas, partner them with the expertise of JVP and get them into conversations with companies who need their services," James Patchett, the head of New York's Economic Development Corporation (EDC) told Business Insider. "They can take their company from an idea with a little business behind it, to a real, full blown business."
JVP, a firm that has previously backed cybersecurity unicorns like CyberArk and Chromatis, hopes that the center will will help put a few more feathers in its cap. Many of the companies that have already joined the center already have ready-to-market products, which range from financial analysis technology, and protection against financial cybercrime, to tools for monitoring baby sleep patterns.
"The thing that was most interesting for us was the startups, the young companies, the universities," JVP President Eral Margalit said, describing the center's potential. "We're asking companies ... Why don't you use New York as your center and grow into a unicorn in the city in the next three to four years?"
And international companies have quickly taken JVP up on its offer. Access Fintech, a fintech developer with a base in Tel Aviv and London, just moved into the center this October. Roy Saadon, the CEO, said they were one of the first tenants in the building and said it already offers a "focused space to collaborate," with other startups in their Series A and B rounds of funding. The center has already hosted workshops held by McKinsey and as well as universities and recruiters, he said.
A $100 million bid to create 10,000 jobs
The center is part of a $100 million broader initiative that New York City has poured its resources into developing, to take advantage of a lucrative industry that is increasingly in demand from the finance, healthcare and media industries.
The Cyber NYC project links the JVP center with another Chelsea-based cyber hub (developed in partnership with another Israeli company, Sosa), as well as a network of universities (Columbia, NYU, CUNY, and Cornell) that is helping develop talent.
The EDC says the new center, along with the rest of Cyber NYC's initiatives, should help create an additional 10,000 jobs in the industry, more than doubling its current size.
By helping international companies also find a spot at the JVP International Cyber Center, the EDC hopes to build on the "network effects" that already exist thanks to the city's many job seekers and a ready pool of companies that rely on cybersecurity to protect the sensitive information they work with.
"Part of it is about really advancing the ecosystem here," Patchett said. "When you start to see a certain amount of momentum in the industry, other people have to be there because there's so much activity happening."
Tapping into a global market worth more than $110 billion
The global cybersecurity market was worth $116.5 billion in 2018, according to Grand View Research. And it's a market that keeps growing.
Cybersecurity and privacy companies raised close to $10 billion in funding through 2019, according to data from Crunchbase. That's an 11% increase from funding raised last year, and a whopping 482% increase in funding compared to that raised back in 2010.
And the opportunity for New York, with its dense concentration of Fortune 500 companies, is immense.
"We all need to be a little hungry and open up," JVP's Margalit said. "And just act a little bit like a startup ourselves."