As New York City continues to promote the rise of Silicon Alley start-ups, the state comptroller’s office is doing its part for the cause.
On Tuesday, the office of Thomas P. DiNapoli plans to promote its investments in two technology companies, RebelMouse and CoopKanics, as part of its initiative to invest in New York businesses. (The two transactions were previously disclosed by the companies themselves.)
The investments were made as part of the comptroller’s In-State Private Equity Program, which meant to support native New York businesses while also generating hopefully solid returns. Last year, the comptroller’s office boasted that the program over all had yielded an internal rate of return exceeding 30 percent.
Though the program was created in 1999, Mr. DiNapoli has focused its efforts in recent years on homegrown tech companies, dovetailing with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg‘s “Made in N.Y.†initiative. It currently has about $278 million invested in New York City start-ups, and since 2011 has set aside an additional $60 million for early-stage investments.
Both deals mentioned in Tuesday’s announcement were made on behalf of the fund by SoftBank Capital, one of the investment firms managing state money as part of the comptroller’s program.
SoftBank led the $10.25 million Series A investment in RebelMouse, gaining a seat on the social networking aggregator’s board. It also participated in the roughly $3 million Series A round for CoopKanics, which hasn’t disclosed much about its plans other than it is focused on mobile.
Both companies have connections to previous investments made through the comptroller’s program. RebelMouse’s chief executive, Paul Berry, formerly worked at the Huffington Post. Another investor in the company, Michael Lazerow, founded the social media specialist advertising Buddy Media, which Salesforce.com bought last year for $689 million.
And the founders of CoopKanics, Jordan Cooper and Doug Petkanics, previously started Hyperpublic, a local information collector that was acquired last year by Groupon.
