The cash flows and debt capacities of the mature high-tech corporations headquartered there dwarf their counterparts in Northern Virginia. But Northern Virginia, which only two years ago was a financial backwater, is coming on strong. That amount was twice the volume for all of 1997, and much of that money ended up in Northern Virginia. Data from the National Venture Capital Association reveals that from 1993 to 1998, venture capital investment increased 44 percent annually in Northern Virginia, compared with only 30 percent in Silicon Valley. Venture capital is growing as local angel investors shepherd new companies through the start-up stage.
Success builds on success.
That's what built Silicon Valley if you go back over a 20-year history. Mass. But there's a catch to this statistic. Northern Virginia has no research university that can touch Stanford, which has played a role in the creation of companies like Yahoo, Cisco Systems and Sun Microsystems. But Blacksburg-based Virginia Tech recently established a research center in Alexandria that specializes in information technology. The research center's biggest clients are the Naval Research Laboratory and the Department of Energy, but Hincker says Virginia Tech will increasingly cater to the info-tech community in Northern Virginia.