This year we met more than two hundred founders working on cities, from housing software to small delivery robots. A few patterns stood out.

Cities want to buy

The biggest change is on the buying side. City governments are more open to working with young companies than at any point we can remember. Several of the cities we spoke to have set up teams whose only job is to run pilots with startups.

That does not make selling to cities easy. Procurement is still slow, and pilots do not always turn into contracts. But the door is more open than it was.

Housing is the biggest problem

Almost every city we visited named housing as its most urgent issue. The companies making progress are the ones that help cities build faster without cutting corners: better planning tools, faster permits and smarter use of existing buildings.

What we are looking for

We expect to make three or four new investments in cities over the next year. We are especially interested in founders who have worked inside city governments or large property companies and understand how decisions really get made.

If that sounds like you, write to us.