Tech:NYC Digest: February 14

Tech:NYC Digest: February 14

February 14, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

Monday, February 14, 2023

Happy Valentine’s Day! We spent the day delivering a love letter to our tech friends in Brooklyn (more on that below). In today’s digest, NYC gets on board with flexible work, the straphanger’s affection for the NYC subway, and Industry City’s plans to become home base for local startup founders.   

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  • City Hall is surveying city agencies to see how they can introduce more flexible work options with municipal employees (and there’s reason to believe they’ll take their cues from the playbooks of tech companies). (Gothamist)

  • Cases of norovirus — a common, contagious virus — are rising in New York and across the US. Here’s what to know about symptoms, treatment, and prevention. 

  • A new report found that about 120,000 NYC children were moved out of poverty in 2021 due to an expansion of a pandemic-era federal “child tax credit” program. The number of households that reported a reliance on food pantries also decreased by 21%. (Gothamist)

In other reading:

  • Are New Yorkers Feeling the Love, Even on the Subway? (New York Times)

  • In honor of Valentine's Day, now NYC couples make ‘long distance’ work (Gothamist)

  • What it was like with Eric Adams overnight at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal migrant site (City & State)

The Tech:NYC team today revived a favorite tradition we began before the pandemic: day-long, all-team field trips to the neighborhoods attracting some of the city’s most interesting tech sector growth. Today’s trip was all about Industry City, a historic manufacturing-turned-creative entrepreneurship hub in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

Here’s a peek at our itinerary, which included visits to:

  • The Freelancers Hub, a community co-working and workshop space opened by the Freelancers Union to offer free resources to independent business owners and workers;

  • Sahadi’s for (way too many) lunchtime kabob dishes, with our partners at the Southwest Brooklyn Industrial Development Corporation;

  • Camp David, the restored 50,000 square foot co-working space for new entrepreneurs and small businesses;

  • BioBAT and Makerspace, two major initiatives to repurpose underutilized space at the historic Brooklyn Army Terminal.

Brooklyn is emerging as a tech hub of its own: Research we released at the end of last year found that much of the New York tech growth over the last decade has happened in Brooklyn.

  • At least 14,000 new tech jobs have been added in the borough during that time, the highest rates among the five boroughs.

Our takeaway: The future of New York tech will flourish in the places where tech workers actually want to live. Industry City has done an incredible job of offering a home base to hundreds of entrepreneurs over the last eight years, and it’s a model we’re excited to see replicated across the rest of the five boroughs.

In other reading:

MEMBER EVENT: Tech:NYC is hosting a special, members-only virtual briefing and conversation with Zach Iscol, Commissioner of the NYC Emergency Management Department, on Feb. 21. Commissioner Iscol has been leading the city’s response to the ongoing migrant crisis, and the tech community is getting involved to rally resources that welcome asylum seekers as permanent New Yorkers.Employees of all levels welcome: If you work at a Tech:NYC member company and would like to join, send us a note here and we’ll pass along the Zoom details.

  • Betty, a NYC-based online casino and mobile gaming company, raised $5 million in seed funding. Karlani Capital led the round and was joined by CEAS Investments, Courtside Ventures, Gaingels, OCA Ventures, Subversive Capital, and 305 Ventures. (Newswire)

  • Orb Labs, a NYC-based blockchain interoperability company, raised $4.5 million in seed funding. Bain Capital Crypto led the round and was joined by Shima Capital, 6th Man Ventures, Aves Lair, Newman Capital, Modular Capital, and SevenX Ventures. (CoinDesk)

  • Via, a NYC-based transportation technology platform provider, raised $110 million in new funding. 83North led the round and was joined by Exor N.V., Pitango, Janus Henderson, CF Private Equity, Planven Entrepreneur Ventures, Riverpark Ventures, and ION Crossover Partners. (TechCrunch)

  • February 15: In-person: Founders in Fintech: Opportunities & Challenges in 2023, with Percent CEO Nelson Chu, Accrue Savings CEO Michael Hershfield, and Canapi Ventures investor Mary Alex Smith. Hosted by Stacklist. Register here.

  • February 16: In-person: PrimeTime VC Live, with VSC Ventures general partner Jay Kapoor, m]x[v Capital founding principal Jay Estefani Castillo, irrvrntVC general partner Andrew Gluck, and others. Hosted by Barclays Rise New York. Register here.

  • February 21: Virtual: #notapitch: Unofficial Feedback on your Idea/Prototype from Brooklyn Bridge Ventures founding partner Charlie O’Donnell. Register here.

  • February 21: Virtual: Future Enterprise Software Founders AMA, with Work-Bench co-founder and general partner Jonathan Lehr. Register here.

  • February 22: In-person: Tech Founders & Builders Fireside Chat & Mixer, with Brooklyn Bridge Ventures founding partner Charlie O'Donnell. Register here.

  • February 23: In-person: Cornell Tech @ Bloomberg speaker series, with Esusu co-founder and co-CEO Wemimo Abbey. Hosted by Tech:NYC, Bloomberg, and Cornell Tech. Register here.

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