Tech:NYC Digest: August 1

Tech:NYC Digest: August 1

August 01, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

Tuesday, August 1, 2023

In today’s digest, we catch up with Cohort 1 of the Tech:NYC Founder House, NYC’s next big public broadband expansion, and the robots are keeping Downtown Brooklyn clean.

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  • A new plan to prevent gun violence in NYC, jointly rolled out by Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul, includes funding to expand youth jobs. (New York Daily News)

    • This fiscal year's state budget includes $24 million to make NYC’s Summer Youth Employment Program year-round. 

  • The most common destinations for New Yorkers moving away from Manhattan in 2020 and 2021 were … the other boroughs: Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens, in that order followed by Westchester County. (Albany Times Union)

  • Mayor Adams announced the expansion of "Big Apple Connect" to 17 new public housing developments, with more than 330,000 New Yorkers now eligible for free in-home internet and basic cable TV. 

In other reading:

  • Here’s how federal student loan borrowers can now apply for the SAVE repayment plan (CNBC)

  • How I Order an Inflation Special (New York Magazine)

  • You can now play pickleball in Union Square (TimeOut New York)

A few weeks ago, Tech:NYC opened the doors to its first-ever Founder House, a new partnership with WeWork to support 25 exciting New York founders at the earliest stages of building their startups.

Here’s the TL;DR: The initiative was born out of a need we heard from many founders who started their companies leading up to — or right in the middle of — the pandemic. In response, Tech:NYC decided to bring 25 of those founders together, under one (literal office space) roof, to make sure they could catch up on the right access to investors, industry experts, and most importantly, each other.

  • We prioritized entrepreneurs who were (1) from underrepresented backgrounds, (2) who are building in emerging sectors like AI, climate, and blockchain, and (3) who missed out on the collaborations and networking they were banking on to get their businesses off the ground. 

The inaugural Founder House was even more productive than we anticipated — curated introductions to local leaders we brought in from Carta, Innovatemap, and other industry partners helped the founders accomplish in one day what could’ve taken much longer on their own.

We circled back to five founders in the inaugural cohort — New Yorkers leading companies scaling new solutions in AI, food tech, mobility, and more. They’re our latest Companies to Watch:

  • Twine: An AI-powered “chief of staff” platform that summarizes, threads, and shares important business updates from meetings, Slack, and other tools across a business

  • Stak Mobility: A mobile self-service parking and EV charging solution for drivers in urban areas.

  • Airpals: An all-in-one B2B courier and logistics platform for office, administrative, and commercial real estate professionals.

  • Fig: An nutrition app that combines food and health systems data to build personalized plans for their dietary needs.

  • Dathic: An insights and analytics platform helping brands understand and authentically market to US Latino and multicultural consumers.

What’s next: Stay tuned for details on the next Founder House (spoiler: it opens its doors for New York Tech Week this fall). If you’re an early-stage founder interested in being a part of Cohort 2 of Founder House, send us a note here.

In other reading:

  • The winners and losers of the new AI job market, as predicted by McKinsey (Fortune)

  • New White House plan goes all out to bring people into cyber (Axios)

  • Robots helping keep Downtown Brooklyn clean (NY1)

  • CorralData, a NYC-based data and analytics platform, raised $1.5 million in seed funding. New York Angels, NY Angels Fund, eonCapital, and Hilltop Ventures co-led the round and were joined by Orange Ocean Ventures and Perimetre Capital.

  • GlassPoint, a NYC-based startup for solar-generated steam for industrial uses, raised $8 million in Series A funding. 300PPM led the round and was joined by a group of individual investors.

  • Steg.AI, a NYC-based deep-learning image watermarking startup, raised $5 million in Series A funding. Paladin Capital Group led the round and was joined by Washington Square Angels and the NYU Innovation Venture Fund.

  • August 2: In-person: AI Tech for Good Pitch Contest, featuring finalists Azul Bio, InterviewMaster, Libbie Health, Pajama Cats Media, and Tilosia. Hosted by Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. Use code TechNYC for a complimentary ticket while supplies last. Register here.

  • August 3: In-person: What is New York’s Web3 Future?, with Coinbase chief policy officer Faryar Shirzad, Assembly Member Clyde Vanel, NYC Council Member Jennifer Gutierrez, and other government leaders. Hosted by Coinbase and Tech:NYC. Register here.

  • August 8: In-person: Entrepreneurs Roundtable 180, with New York Venture Partners founding partner Brian Cohen. Hosted by ERA. Register here.

  • August 22: Virtual: #notapitch: Unofficial Feedback on Your Idea/Prototype from a VC, with Brooklyn Bridge Ventures partner Charlie O’Donnell. Register here.

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