There has been some talk for a while about a slowdown in entrepreneurial activity in New England.  The departure of Greylock threw a bit more fuel in the fire recently, although it wasn’t really anything new practically speaking.

But I’m actually feeling pretty good about this region.  There has certainly been a lot of transition, and I think the venture industry here is going through a period of flux.  But I do see a number of reasons to be optimistic:

1. Great People.  Boston will always have a great flow of smart people.  I don’t see that changing anytime soon, and as long as that remains, I think this region will always have great raw material for technlogical innovation.  Admittedly, Spark has not made that many investments in the Boston area, but we have excellent founders and executives in our portfolio companies that got their start here or met Spark because they were local entrepreneurs.  Alex Wang, Rob Balazy, Rick Goodman, and Conor Madigan are just a few of these folks.  We keep on meeting more and more excellent folks here, and I fully expect our portfolio of Boston based companies to expand.

2. Good companies.  I think success begets success, and although we haven’t had a Google or Amazon in recent years, I think we have some pretty interesting companies in this area.  From early stage companies I’ve blogged about previously (not in Spark’s portfolio) like Kiva Systems, Sermo, and Hubspot, to companies we are backing like Verivue, to more established market leaders like Tripadvisor, I think there is a lot to be proud of in the Boston tech eco-system. And that doesn’t include life sciences or cleantech companies that I don’t focus on.

3. More Activity.  There is an increasing level of activity, openness, and collaboration in the local entrepreneurial community that I think is also very encouraging.  I see this being spearheaded on many fronts, from efforts like Innovation Month , TechStars, and more grassroots gatherings like OpenCoffee and PopSignal.  I’m also hearing more and more about coworking spaces and incubators that are sprouting up around town.

So, there’s a lot happenning around here and I hope it continues.  When I moved to Boston from the Bay Area, it was because I love this town and have many family and friends here that I wanted to be close to.  I hope to build a long career here, and I’m really hoping that I’ll see some huge success stories in New England in the not too distant future.