Tech:NYC Digest: February 28

Tech:NYC Digest: February 28

February 28, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes

Tuesday, February 28, 2023

In today’s digest, why outdoor dining’s future may become seasonal, a jolt of optimism for Manhattan office buildings, and for the latest in our NYC Companies to Watch series, the Black founders powering the future of New York tech.

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  • The NYC Council is expected to pass legislation to make the pandemic-era outdoor dining program permanent — but only during the warmer months. According to the new proposal, sidewalk dining won’t face seasonal restrictions, but dining structures that use street space will only be allowed to operate for part of the year. (Grub Street)

  • New analysis from the Real Estate Board of New York, in partnership with location intelligence data startup Placer.ai, holds more optimism for RTO levels that other leading trackers.(New York Post) 

    • According to their results, average “visitation” rates to Manhattan office buildings in 2022 surpassed 60% of what they were in pre-pandemic 2019, and occupancy rates exceeded 50% of pre-pandemic figures in nearly two-thirds of buildings.

  • The NYC Ferry is launching an express route from South Brooklyn to Wall Street beginning March 8. The new service won’t add any cost, because it’s already on an existing service line, and is expected to shave roughly 20 minutes off the commute to lower Manhattan. (Crain’s New York Business)

In other reading:

  • How a Brooklyn school disrupts education to prepare Black, Latino students for six-figure tech jobs (CNBC)

  • Should You Give a Candidate Your Signature? A Voter’s Guide to Petitioning Season (THE CITY)

  • Williamsburg Is Entering Its Fifth Avenue Era (Curbed)

The numbers tell a familiar story: Black founders raised just 1% of all US venture capital funding in 2022 — still. According to data from Crunchbase, that’s a slight drop from the 1.3% raised in 2021.

  • The current downturn, some argue, has made it easier for VCs to shelve funding commitments and other initiatives launched in the past few years specifically supporting Black and other underrepresented founders. 

Still, there are notable bright spots: Today, Google for Startups announced the opening of its fourth Black Founders Fund (and second Latino Founders Fund). Since 2020, the Funds have deployed $20 million in cash to founders in the US, who have gone on to raise more than $190 million in follow-on funding.

  • If you’re a Black and/or Latino early-stage tech founder, learn more about the Funds and apply by March 26 here.

To close out Black History Month, we spoke with Mae founder and CEO Maya Hardigan and GeoCloud co-founder and CEO Adiodun Johnson about growing their businesses in NYC and the work still left to do in cultivating a more inclusive industry year-round. .

In other reading:

  • Andrena, a NYC-based residential and commercial internet provider, raised $15 million in Series A funding. Dragonfly Capital led the round and was joined by Afore Capital, FJ Labs, Castle Island Ventures, Chaos Ventures, KohFounders, J Ventures, Blockchange Ventures, Moonshot Research, and EV3.

  • Archetype, a NYC-based revenue infrastructure platform for APIs, raised $3.1 million in seed funding. MaC Venture Capital led the round and was joined by Hustle Fund, Magic Fund, NOMO Ventures, Soma Capital, and others.

  • Spade, a NYC-based credit transaction data provider, raised $5 million in seed funding. Andreessen Horowitz led the round and was joined by YCombinator, Gradient Ventures, Dash Fund, and other angels.

  • Wiz, a NYC-based cloud security provider, raised $300 million in Series D funding. Lightspeed Venture Partners, as well as insiders Greenoaks Capital Partners and Index Ventures, co-led the round.

  • March 9: In-person: Innovating for Financial Inclusion in Fintech, with Alinea Invest co-CEO Eve Halimi, SoLo Funds director of growth Nicole Bayard, and Bolder Money co-founder Amy Schultz. Hosted by WIN NY and Rise, created by Barclays. Register here.

  • March 15: In-person: NY Enterprise Technology Meetup, with Haystack partner Semil Shah, Cowboy Ventures partner Amanda Robson, Streamdal CEO Ustin Zarubin, and others. Hosted by Work-Bench. Register here.

  • March 15: In-person: NY Product Meetup, with Regal co-founder, CTO, and head of product Rebecca Greene. Hosted by Productboard. Register here.

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