A few months ago, I had breakfast with a prominent venture capitalist about the past and future of the venture business.  He was very helpful and complimentary about what we are doing at NextView, except for one thing.

At that point, we had just made the decision to move from shared office space in East Cambridge to downtown Boston.  We are located at 186 South Street, in Boston’s Leather District, just a few steps away from South Station

This VC looked at me incredulously.  And I understand the surprise.  I’m a big believer in creating vibrant, local communities of innovation.  We definitely have a center of activity in Cambridge.  But what I think most people don’t realize is that there is a shift happening and more and more companies are moving to the Boston area.

We think of our own search for office space as indicative of what seed stage companies that we invest in would go through.  We needed to be close to the Red Line, we needed a space that was very cheap, we needed a place with a good vibe to build a strong culture, and we needed a place that could allow us to look respectable to potential customers, recruits, etc.

For us, the answer was the Leather District. And it wasn’t just for us.  Our Portfolio Company Boundless Learning and TurningArt had similar needs.  Both initially looked in Cambridge, both found the Leather District to be the right place for them. Later stage companies like Gemvara, Dataxu, Visible Measures, Mocospace, CLOVR, as well as raw startups like those in Mass Challenge and Workbar have found homes in our broader district as well.

Because we there were so many new companies moving into the area at the same time, we did a little “office crawl” last night.  Here’s a photo from our stop on the tour.

We started at the gorgeous new space at Gemvara, heading to our Microbrew themed digs at NextView, hanging out with artists and geeks at TurningArt, and ending the night playing beer pong and seeing a very very secretive product demo at Boundless Learning.  The picture below captures the demo and popped collar dress code at Boundless (with Matt Nichols, one of the originators of the concept looking on).

All in all, it was a great night. I’m excited about the community of entrepreneurs that we are a part of here in Boston, and love the fact that we have two portfolio companies (hopefully more) within a literal stone’s throw from our offices. We all still spend a lot of time in Cambridge – we love our friends at Dog Patch Labs, Techstars, and the CIC (and I could never abandon my beloved Voltage Cafe for too long).  But I think all the folks in the Leather District would agree that we are excited about our new home.

Come by and visit!  We are always open to good entrepreneurs popping in and grabbing some wifi for a few hours when they are in the neighborhood.  The offer stands for entrepreneurs from New York visiting Boston – we’re a good home base if you are around and want a place to hang for a bit close to the train station or the Megabus.

And thanks everyone for a really terrific night last night.  It was a blast!  Thanks Ariel, Matt, Jason and everyone else for helping to coordinate.