By Staff Writer – Boonsri Dickinson (@boonspoon)

Ride the N train and you’re in the fashion center of New York City. On the street, some vendors sell you hot dogs, others sell you scarves and gloves. There, you’ll find all the necessities you need to stay warm and full. On Broadway, stores like Top Shop, Sephora, and Bloomingdale’s are packed with holiday shoppers.

What you can’t see beyond these stores, are the number of start-up companies who have begun to call Soho their home. Big open spaces with tall ceilings — there’s plenty of room for creativity.

Squarespace just had a party in their new loft.  Start-up companies are setting up shop in Soho, and you might not know it. These companies penetrate our digital lives, not our material one. We check into Foursquare, the location based mobile app, to explore the city and find out if our friends are nearby and what they like. Companies like Etsy change the way we shop and SEM & SEO changes the way we search. New York is also home of the blog world and the email newsletters.

VC principle of Union Square Ventures, Fred Wilson, put the growth of start-ups in perspective when he gave a presentation. In 1995, there were 30 NYC seed and early stage tech deals, compared to the 230 in the Bay Area. Last year there were 95 tech deals in NYC, and 285 in San Francisco. This year, there were 150 tech deals made in New York and 336 in San Francisco. Why are more deals happening in New York? Here are some reasons Wilson gave to explain this boom:

1. Diverse Industries

2. Application Focused

3. Media central

4. Creative people

5. New York’s history of being entrepreneurial

6. Awesome lifestyle

Six is definitely true. At the last few technology parties, the rich start-up culture is certainly there. Even though the bars are dimly lit, the light from the gadgets and phones shine like fireflies in the night and it is clear that the devices out number the pints of beer on the tables.

Image: flickr/ oemebamo

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