U.S. Venture Capital Flows Back to The Coasts

For a moment during the pandemic, it looked as if Silicon Valley might lose its dominance in startup investment.

While remote work persists, the companies attracting capital are even more likely to be based in a few “superstar” cities than they were pre-pandemic. I Photo: Y Combinator Facebook

Y Combinator (YC), the renowned startup accelerator, moved its Spring 2020 Demo Day online, and venture capitalists learned to evaluate startups over Zoom, Walter Frick reported for Bloomberg Weekend.

By the end of that year, YC’s accelerator program was fully remote, and by 2022, it reported that 70% of job listings on one of its platforms were remote-friendly. Investors and tech workers flocked to emerging hubs like Miami, Austin, and Dallas.

The share of venture capital going to startups in the top four U.S. tech cities began to shrink. That was then.

In 2025, venture capital investment in the U.S. is more geographically concentrated than before the pandemic, according to PitchBook.

Nearly four out of every five VC dollars in the first quarter of 2025 went to startups in just four cities: the Bay Area, New York, Boston, and Los Angeles. While remote work persists, the companies attracting capital are even more likely to be based in a few “superstar” cities than they were pre-pandemic.