After nearly a decade, industrials-focused VC Eclipse expanded out of Silicon Valley. The firm opened its second office in New York’s Soho neighborhood with plans to invest more on the East Coast.
Eclipse backs startups in sectors including manufacturing, supply chain, healthcare, and infrastructure, among others, both through its early stage and early growth-focused funds. Since the firm’s founding in 2015, it has been exclusively located in Silicon Valley — until now.
Kaitlyn Glancy, a New York-based partner that joined Eclipse in 2023 after eight years at Flexport, told TechCrunch that the timing was right for the firm to formally expand to New York.
Glancy said that the pandemic made a lot of people “wake up” to the issues in legacy industries like supply chain and transportation. She added that since then there has been a noticeable rise in companies looking to fix these industries’ woes and these startups are increasingly popping up on the East Coast.
“If you look at like the deep industrial ecosystem of New York, and the broader Northeast, there’s a strong industrial history,” Glancy said. “When I’m meeting with founders, they’re kind of pulling on that. They’re pulling on some interesting family history. They’re also pulling on interesting current events. Supply chains are broken, transportation systems are broken. There’s a lot of opportunity here.”
This office also allows the firm to set up a local hub for the companies it has already backed in New York and beyond on the East Coast. Eclipse has already invested in a handful of East Coast startups.
New York-based Augury is one. Eclipse backed the machine health diagnostic company in August 2015, it was last valued at $1 billion in 2021. Reframe Systems is another. Reframe is based in Andover, Massachusetts and built a microfactory to produce small sustainable homes.
Glancy added that there are other secondary benefits to setting up camp in New York too. This office puts them closer to many of their LPs and also gives them easier access to Washington D.C., which is increasingly important, she said, as the firm has gotten more into defense tech investing.
“We’re seeing founders, and we’re seeing success in our existing portfolio companies in this industrial space, so let’s go double down,” Glancy said. “If we have a team that’s based here, we should be able to go and find more founders that are playing in this ecosystem and help really be the center of gravity.”
Eclipse isn’t the only firm that is looking to put more emphasis on investing in the New York tech scene this year. Index Ventures just recently told TechCrunch they were looking to add multiple new people to their New York office. Index did just lose Paris Heymann, one of the firm’s founding partners in New York, this month.
New York startups raised $5.6 billion across 406 deals in Q3 of 2024, according to PitchBook data. While this figure represents a dip from Q2, $7.1 billion was invested across 420 deals, it still cements New York as the second largest startup ecosystem in the U.S. and shows that San Francisco is not the only place to build a successful company despite what some Bay Area VCs think.
For now, Eclipse’s New York office will house Glancy and Ashwin Pushpala, an Eclipse venture partner, in addition to room for portfolio company founders. Eclipse is currently investing out of its fifth early-stage fund, $720 million, and second early growth fund, $510 million. Glancy said the firm is looking to put that capital to work and actively seeking new companies in New York and all around the East Coast.
“We want everybody who’s playing in that industrial space to be working with us, having conversations with us, or building around us,” Glancy said.
