Seeing the Cape, Maine, Vermont or New Hampshire is a summer ritual in New England. Everyone has their favorite and many have long family histories of visiting the same town or even the same house in these spots year after year.  

It struck me as odd when I moved from Chicago to Boston over 23 years ago. It's all about place. What place do you identify with for living or leisure?  

It does not matter how nomadic we are in our quest for careers. My family moved four times around the globe in pursuit of job opportunities. What matters is your sense of place.  

Where are you from? Where do you like to visit? How do you spend an August vacation?

Place matters in technology, too. What school did you attend? Where did your network of friends settle? What place feels most like home? Are there opportunities for growth in your selected location?

That is a key reason Dave choose One Kendall as the location for Link Ventures and Cogo Labs. It's why we choose to put Vestigo here. We are a few blocks from MIT and down the road from Harvard. Educational opportunities abound in our chosen place which brings talent.

We also love that we are in a place with the greatest concentration of venture dollars in the world. Yes, Silicon Valley has many wonderful VC's and the total size is larger, but Cambridge is the concentrated epicenter of value creation for venture.

As you travel to your place for fun, think about how place defines opportunity. If it’s for vacation, it might be an opportunity to see sharks in Chatham on Cape Cod or mountain bike in Quechee, Vermont. It could be hiking in New Hampshire with your family or kayaking around a beautiful Maine lake.  

If you think about FinTech investing, then place matters a great deal. Having talent, ideas and capital matter a great deal. Having large incumbents in Financial Services matters as much. That is what we have in Cambridge at One Kendall.

Enjoy your summer.

Mark Casady
General Partner Vestigo Ventures