Tech:NYC Digest: August 25

August 25, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

Friday, August 25, 2023

We’re back with another summer Friday edition of the Tech:NYC Digest, featuring our Friday Five highlights in New York tech this week.

Programming note: The Digest will take a brief hiatus next week for some late summer R&R. Have a great Labor Day weekend; we’ll see you on Tuesday, Sept. 5!

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AI startup Hugging Face now valued at $4.5 billion (Axios)

With the close of its $235 million Series D, the NYC-based startup that bills itself as the “GitHub for machine learning” aims to multiply its 500,000 models and 250,000 data sets by 3x next year. Interestingly, backers of this round includes a list of other top tech companies, not more traditional VCs — CEO Clément Delangue told Axios, “we got really excited about [the] ability to do an ecosystem round.” (Side note: Three of the largest New York megarounds so far in 2023 dropped this week: In addition to Hugging Face, Ramp announced a $300 million Series D and Teamshares announced a $245 million Series D+.)

China Tensions Could Create Midterm Vulnerabilities in Some Tech Markets (Wall Street Journal)

It isn’t often that Tech:NYC weighs in on US-China economic policy, but in this case, there are significant impacts for startups in New York: Even though the semiconductor industry has its roots in the US, much of the manufacturing has moved overseas — a trend New York is trying to reverse. A lot of homegrown startups rely on seamless chips production — that’s why our president Julie Samuels shares thoughts about just how important it is for us to double down on investments in the new Micron campus upstate and alternate supply chains more broadly.

NYC Buildings Complying With Emissions Law Faster Than Expected (Bloomberg)

Local Law 97 is a landmark effort to reduce emissions by some of NYC’s largest buildings, and despite some doubt, it’s going well! Building owners are finding the resources and technologies to come into compliance — that’s largely a credit to the burgeoning climate tech sector right here in New York providing the tools to make green energy solutions easy and accessible.

Could this floating pool be an answer to New York’s extreme heat? (Fast Company)

A new initiative called +Pool thinks so, and they’re bringing a floating swimming pool to the East River to prove it.

The Ultimate Guide to Attending the 2023 US Open in NYC (Thrillist)

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