Mr. Bloomberg

Greentech is so firmly associated with the West Coast, we’re not even going to bother with the jokes about hippies and solar panels. But if Mayor Michael Bloomberg has anything to say about it, that’s not going to stay the case. Today the mayor presided over the opening of energy-efficiency software company Efficiency 2.0’s snazzy new Flatiron offices (in the same building as Tumblr, no less), where he made it clear that New York City’s tech scene will not be ignoring the cleantech market, thank you very much.

Mayor Bloomberg led with an update on the city’s environmental efforts--they’ve tripled their solar power production by installing new panels on 10 buildings, for those keeping score at home--and announced that this summer the city will be holding its first green hackathon, dubbed “Reinvent Green.” (He also devoted rather a lot of time to a discussion regarding the virtues of white roofs.)

But before ceding the podium, he also took some time to trumpet his own administration’s support of the startup community. Via the city’s livestream:

We are hearing success stories like this across our tech industry citywide. Just two weeks ago I visited the city’s first tech incubator on Varick Street, where 22 companies have graduated and today employ more than 300 people. Our administration helped foster their growth and is taking the next steps to ensure New Yorkers have the skills to fill the jobs our blooming tech center is creating. And with the new applied sciences campus being built by Cornell University and the Technion Institute of Technology, there will be more and more innovative tech startups coming to New York City.

Anything that’ll help with our Con Ed bill once air conditioning season rolls around. Someone hack that, please.

Check out the mayor’s full statement here.

"You'll fund my mobile app? Terrific!"

With some big name IPOs getting off to a hot start, venture capital firms went all in on during the second quarter of 2011. New data from a MoneyTree report that pulled info from PriceWaterHouseCoopers, the NVCA and Reuters, found that VC funding jumped 18.7% in Q2, reaching its highest level since the 2008 economic crisis began.

Interestingly software was the leader in terms of dollars received. It beat out more capital intensive sectors with 25% market share ($1.5 billion), followed by biotech ($1.2 billion), medical devices/equipment ($840 million) and IT services ($763 million).

In the short term this is a good thing for New York, which has a robust ecosystem for software companies, but still hasn't found its footing in the world of biotech. But in the long run it could be a risk factor. "NYC needs more sector diversity, like cleantech, biotech, infrastructure, " tweeted Silicon Valley Bank's Shai Goldman, pointing to a NY Post article that reported that in New York, internet and mobile startups grabbed 63% of the funding.

"Of course, this lack of sector diversity could be bad if reality doesn't live up to expectations," CB Insights CEO Anand Sandwal told The Post. "We need to start building a biotech and energy tech sector," wrote Fred Wilson in an email to The Post. "Boston and Silicon Valley are way ahead of NYC in these areas. "