Tech:NYC Digest: August 25

Tech:NYC Digest: August 25

August 25, 2022 • Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

Thursday, August 25, 2022 

In honor of the long-standing tradition of summer Fridays, here are our favorite five highlights in New York tech this week, one day early. The Tech:NYC team is also taking an end-of-summer break next week; we’ll be back in your inbox following the Labor Day holiday on Sept. 6.

Was this digest forwarded to you?

.

How VC firm Primary won 11x returns by betting on New York (Insider)

  • Co-founders Brad Svrluga and Ben Sun launched Primary in 2015, a year before we launched Tech:NYC, with a thesis we remained aligned on six years later: NYC can produce a startup ecosystem that rivals Silicon Valley. Their proof points speak for themselves: a 3x return is considered good on a ten-year fund, and 10x is outstanding. If you asked what we think the secret sauce is: it’s all about talent, and we certain Primary would agree. The best startups want the best talent, and the best talent wants to be in New York. Or as Ben Sun said, “It’s much more about being talent scouts than business scouts.” 

Apprenticeships are going beyond the trades (Axios)

  • The pandemic — and its implications for the future of work — has made clear that traditional internship programs should be retooled. Apprenticeships are, deservedly, getting more attention as a way to accommodate hybrid work needs while still delivering real, career-building experiences. Multiverse is one startup leading that movement: with a new office in NYC, $220 million in new venture funding and unicorn status, it hopes more fields like software engineering see this as a unique moment to invest in ways to expand the candidate pool in tech.

Can a Garage Full of Revel Taxis Stop the Next Blackout? (Curbed)

  • As it turns out, yes! This week, Revel installed the city’s first bidirectional chargers in its Red Hook hub, meaning EVs charged there can both take power and feed it back out to the grid. With the right modifications, EVs being charged during non-peak hours could transform parking garages into a network of “battery banks” the city can use as a cleaner alternative when the energy grid needs backup support during peak usage.

A $27 Million NYCEDC Grant Will Launch Two Upper Manhattan Life Sciences Centers (Commercial Observer)

  • Over the last several years, the New York City Economic Development Corporation’s $1 billion LifeSci NYC initiative has been cultivating the city’s status as a global hub for biotech, but this effort to expand those resources to upper Manhattan not only dedicates more resources to medical innovation, but unlocks another untapped pool of tech talent outside the expected midtown coordirors to get closer to its goal of 40,000 new local jobs in this space.

Where to Eat in Flushing Before the 2022 US Open (Grub Street)

  • Qualifying matches began this week before main rounds get underway on Monday. If you’re taking the train for the tennis, you might as well take advantage of the dumplings and boba too.

Any feedback or suggestions of things to add? Get in touch here. Was this digest forwarded to you? Sign up to receive it directly here.