Enough with the Boston Start-up Inferiority Complex

Too many cycles have been spent on the East Coast vs West Coast masochism lately. Sob, Sob, I can't find funding for my Web 2.0 User generated content, social networking, new media, widgetized "feature company" built using ROR and AJAX.

Wake up people, we have IPO's and liquidity events popping all over the place.

2Q 2007 Venture-Backed IPO Metro Region Breakdown

                            *Number of  Total              Venture-
                             Venture-Backed             Backed Offering
    Metro Region            IPOs in the U.S.              Size ($M)

        Boston                     6                          548.1
        San Jose                   6                          608.0
        Other US                   3                          545.6
        New York Metro             2                          170.4

See Boston tied with Silicon Valley..... feel better?

Here is a list of IPO's off the top of my head.

Acme Packet

Airvana

Starent Networks

BladeLogic

Netezza

Salary.com

TechTarget

Virtusa

Filed for IPO:

Constant Contact

Equallogic

Liquidity Events:

Tabblo purchased by HP

Silverback purchased by Dell

AppIQ purchased by HP

Symantec buys Relicore, Imlogic

Citrix buys Reflectant, Ardence

Microsoft buy Softricity

Oracle purchases Profitlogic

I'm sure I didn't get them all, feel free to add to the list. So anyway, things aren't that bad. TheHub does not need to be playing catch up as some have suggested.
The point is, the Boston/Cambridge area has strengths in certain areas such as the old reliables: infrastructure, enterprise software, storage and communications as well as the up and comer sectors of mobile applications, wireless technology, gaming, Rich Media and Video Blogging/Podcasting.

But if you are in the Web 2.0 space, don't fret, we also have the archetype early stage VC program, so just get picked up by Y Combinator and move to Silicon Valley if you feel compelled to do so.