General Assembly, a New York-based technology incubator, has raised $4.25 million, as announced today on the company’s blog by co-founder Brad Hargreaves. The funding round was led by Maveron, the Seattle-based firm co-founded by Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, with participation from Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Yuri Milner, Tom Vander Ark, Alexis Ohanian, Hosain Rahman, and Alex Asseily.
General Assembly opened in January in a 20,000 square-foot space that more closely resembles a college than a typical incubator. It was initially supported by organizations like Skype, Ideo, Silicon Valley Bank, and the New York City Economic Development Corp.
When Xconomy spoke with Hargreaves and co-founder Adam Pritzker back in April, they emphasized the advantages of not being funded by venture capitalists. “The fact that we aren’t venture backed lends itself to an open environment,” Hargreaves said at the time. “It allows people to be more forthright about issues and to ask the community for help.”
Hmmm, seems like a good time for a follow-up look at General Assembly. Brad Hargreaves also serves as one of our Xconomists, so we’ll catch up with him soon. Stay tuned for more on General Assembly’s new funding round.
