Tech:NYC Digest: April 10

Tech:NYC Digest: April 10

April 10, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

Monday, April 10, 2023

Welcome back! In today’s digest, why New York budget negotiations need another extension, Revel cuts the ribbon on the city’s newest EV charging station, and the data that proves when you offer better paid leave, parents will take it.

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  • Approval of the New York state budget continues to drag, and a second extender bill was passed today to ensure state employees are paid this week as negotiations continue. (AP)

  • Revel opened a new EV charging station in south Williamsburg today, adding 15 public charging stalls to the city’s growing EV infrastructure. The Brooklyn-based startup has additional plans to expand more stations throughout the other boroughs. (Brooklyn Paper)

  • More than 42,000 NYC children have applied for 3-K in the coming school year — an all-time high, in part because the city has significantly expanded the 3-K program since it began. But even if every applicant was offered a spot, roughly a quarter of the seats would still go unfilled. (New York Times)

  • One story we love: To highlight Autism Acceptance Month, the MTA launched an initiative inviting kids with autism to narrate NYC subway announcements. Listen for your train updates from the kiddos through the rest of the month. (Gothamist)

In other reading:

One trend we’re glad to see grow through the pandemic: more workers taking paid family leave.

What’s new: In the 12 months through February a monthly 400,000+ workers on average were out of the workplace due to parental leave, a 13.5% jump from 2021, writes the Wall Street Journal.

  • Of particular note was an increase in parental leave taken by fathers — that rate has tripled from five years earlier, whereas the number of women taking leave rose 11% in the same time period.

These upward trends come at the same time employers began expanding eligibility: Justworks, the NYC-based HR and benefits startup, increased its paid parental leave policy to 16 weeks from 12 last year.

  • The company’s policy piggybacks on New York’s 12-week requirement, and it pays the difference in the employees weekly wage and the 67% cap the state program pays.

Several other NYC tech companies have been at the forefront of similar expansions as part of a benefits revamp that takes a page out of their pandemic playbooks to put flexibility at the center of their policies:

  • The typical mother now takes 120 days of bonding leave, up from 110 before the pandemic, and the median father takes 60 days, a 15-day increase.

  • New York data shows similar trends, with moms claiming 9.9 weeks in 2021, and dads extending their average leave by 2.3 weeks to roughly 7 weeks.

There’s still plenty to do: The US remains the only advanced economy without nationally mandated paid parental leave, and New York is one of just eight states that require employers to provide leave.

  • In many cases, those employers are picking up more of the slack: Justworks, for example, covers the entire wage bill for workers in states without leave programs.

In other reading:

  • Why CoinFund managing partner David Pakman think it’s the best time to invest despite industry turmoil (Fortune)

  • That Meeting Was Too Long (and It Probably Could’ve Been an Email) (New York Times)

  • Six simple technologies that quietly make your life better (Washington Post)

  • Billy, a NYC-based construction insurance startup, raised $2.5 million in funding. Entrada Ventures and MetaProp co-led the round.

  • Native AI, a NYC and Cincinnati-based market intelligence platform, raised $3.5 million in seed funding. JumpStart Ventures and Ivy Ventures co-led the round and were joined by 11 Tribes Ventures and Connetic Ventures.

  • Staytuned Digital, a NYC-based provider of e-commerce tools, raised $34 million in equity and debt funding. TenOneTen Ventures led the equity raise and was joined by Rembrandt Venture Partners, Hawke Ventures, DragonX Capital, and FJ Labs.

  • Tally Health, a NYC-based consumer biotechnology company, raised $10 million in seed funding. Forerunner Ventures led the round and was joined by L Catterton, G9 Ventures, and Second Sight Ventures.

  • April 12 – 14: In-person and virtual: NFT.NYC, with OpenSea co-founder Alex Atallah, givepact CEO Alicia Maule, Salesforce general manager of web3 Adam Caplan, and others. Register here.

  • April 13: In-person: PrimeTime VC Live, with H/L Ventures investor Megan Ananian, Alumni Ventures investor Pete Mathias, Red Beard Ventures investor Elana Dickman, and Included VC investor Saka Saddiq Nuru. Hosted by Bolster and Company Ventures. Register here.

  • April 20: Virtual: #notapitch: Unofficial Feedback on Your Idea/Prototype from a VC, with Brooklyn Bridge Ventures partner Charlie O’Donnell. Register here.

  • April 24 – 28: Virtual and in-person: New York Fintech Week 2023, with dozens of events featuring Tech:NYC member companies, including Current, Rho, Addition Wealth, Orum, and more. See the full schedule and register here.

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