The fashion, advertising, and finance sectors are teeming with startups, but it takes more than a catchy gimmick to impress Laura Sachar, general partner with StarVest Partners in New York. She says her venture capital firm this year has made new investments across the country in prosaic but solid companies such as Seattle’s Lucid Commerce, a television media agency; NewComLink, an Austin, TX-based provider of retail credit services; and Xignite, a financial market data cloud provider in San Mateo, CA, with offices in New York. (A new investment is also in the works, Sachar says, but it’s too early to discuss details.) StarVest Partners has invested $30 million so far this year, and its follow-on investments include fast-growing fashion flash sales website ideeli in New York, which raised $41 million in a Series C round in April.
In a recent interview with Xconomy, Sachar said StarVest focuses on proven management teams in need of expansion capital, and that it makes a point of seeking out companies that can benefit from the firm’s network of relationships in New York.
Xconomy: How does your experience with New York’s industries relate to the country as a whole?
Laura Sachar: The companies we are talking about can be attractive and build customers throughout the U.S., but they really leverage something unique that New York brings. That’s why we have a robust investment community and that’s why so many companies are being
