Tech:NYC Digest: February 18

Tech:NYC Digest: February 18

February 18, 2022 • Estimated Reading Time: 9 minutes

Friday, February 18, 2022

Happy long weekend! (We’re observing the President’s Day holiday, so we’ll see you on Tuesday.) In today’s digest, Mayor Adams & Gov. Hochul announce subway safety plan, protected bike lanes are getting barrier support, and why tech companies could actually stick with RTO plans this spring.

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By the numbers:  

  • New positive cases statewide: 4,847

    • New positive cases, NYC: 2,166 

  • NYC Positivity Rate: 1.5 percent (+0.1 percent)

  • NYC Hospitalizations: 1,084 (-48)

  • Statewide Vaccine Progress: 

    • Percentage of all New Yorkers with least one dose: 88.5 percent

    • Percentage of all New Yorkers who are fully vaccinated: 75.1 percent

Today’s latest: 

  • Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul jointly announced a new safety plan meant to further enforce rules of conduct on NYC subways, including the removal of homeless people sheltering in the system. (New York Times)

    • Teams of social workers and police will begin canvassing subway stations next week to direct homeless and mentally ill people to treatment and housing programs. A full overview of the plan is available here.

  • A new year-long study of more than 150,000 COVID patients found that people who contracted the virus were significantly more likely to be diagnosed with depression, anxiety, or other mental health problems over those who didn’t get infected. (New York Times)

  • The Dept. of Transportation has begun “hardening” existing protected bike lanes with fortified barriers, with the goal of completing 20 miles of lanes by the end of 2023. (Streetsblog)

  • Mayor Adams is pausing an expansion of the city’s curbside organic recycling program due to low participation. (Gothamist) State Senator Brad Hoylman introduced legislation yesterday that would require the city to create a composting program for all residents. (amNY)

In other reading:

  • Will Adults Need a Fourth Dose of the COVID Vaccine? (New York Times)

  • What it’s like to be a COVID compliance officer in a Broadway theater (Time Out NY)

  • Catching New Yorkers Mid-Delivery: A deliciously relatable new form of a selfie (The Cut)

ICYMI

: Tech:NYC’s new Executive Director, Jason Myles Clark, sat down with City & State to discuss his priorities for championing the city’s tech sector, including workforce development initiatives.

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With Omicron fading in New York, RTO plans have risen back to the top of executives’ priority lists — and they might actually stick this time.

  • Microsoft is calling its employees back at the end of the month, with a grace period of 30 days to allow employees to adopt the work preferences they’ve agreed upon with their managers.

  • American Express and BNY Mellon are still on track for a March 7 reopening, and Meta is still planning for the end of March. Expedia announced an April 4 reopening date.

  • Major New York-headquartered banks have already brought employees back, and are no longer requiring vaccinated employees to wear masks. (Axios)

Some research indicates the spring push is to satisfy executives — a Future Forum survey found they’re three times as likely as rank-and-file employees to want to return to the office on a regular basis.

But: Other data from Morning Consult, which has been tracking sentiments from US employees who are now working remotely, indicates workers are getting more comfortable with returning to a physical office:

  • Remote workers’ comfort with returning to the office is up from 56 percent to 68 percent, the highest point since the Omicron wave in November 2021.

  • However, 61 percent said they’d only be comfortable returning if they knew their colleagues were vaccinated.

There’s nothing groundbreaking here, but it does point to one shift: that employers and employees are getting closer to the same page about office plans beyond the pandemic. That alignment could be the final signal companies need to (finally) stick to their RTO plans.

In other reading: 

  • Why 2022 is one of the hardest times to run a company (Axios)

  • Finding “flow”: Superhuman’s CEO wants to help you get stuff done (Protocol)

  • The Changing Geography of US Talent (Bloomberg)

  • Anvyl, an NYC-based supply chain management startup, raised $15 million in Series B funding. B Capital Group led the round and was joined by insiders AlleyCorp, Company Ventures, First Round Capital, and Redpoint Ventures. (FinSMEs)

  • Check, an NYC-based payroll infrastructure startup, raised $75 million in Series C funding. Stripe led the round and was joined by Bedrock, Thrive Capital, and Index Ventures. (Forbes)

  • Coast, an NYC-based provider of expense management software for fleet operators, raised $27 million in Series A funding. Accel and Insight Partners co-led the round and were joined by Better Tomorrow Ventures, BoxGroup, Flexport, and The Fintech Fund. (TechCrunch)

  • Trullion, an NYC-based financial automation platform, raised $15 million in Series A funding. Aleph and Third Point Ventures co-led the round and were joined by insiders Greycroft and Verissimo Ventures. (Newswire)

  • February 22: Virtual: Investor Series, with Greycroft co-founder Alan Patricof. Hosted by New York Venture Partners. Register here.

  • February 24: Virtual: The Face of a Founder Summit, with Backstage Capital founder Arlan Hamilton, Fanbase CEO Isaac Hayes III, Wellthi CEO Fonta Gilliam, and others. Hosted by Black Women Talk Tech. Register here.

  • February 28: Virtual: From Micro to Institutional: Path to Growing a Successful VC Fund, with Forerunner Ventures founder and managing partner Kirsten Green and 645 Ventures co-founder and managing partner Aaron Holiday. Hosted by Brooklyn Bridge Ventures. Register here.

  • March 3: Virtual: Recruiting and retaining talent in the new world of work, with Slack SVP Brian Elliott, Cisco VP of talent acquisition Zohra Yafai, and others. Hosted by Protocol. Register here. 

  • March 3: Virtual: Mock Term Sheet Negotiation, with CARMERA CEO Ro Gupta, Allegory managing partner Ed Walters, Goodwin partner Heather Miles, and others. Hosted by NYU Data Future Lab. Register here.

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