Tech:NYC Digest: February 3

Tech:NYC Digest: February 3

February 03, 2022 • Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

Thursday, February 3, 2022

 In today’s digest, President Biden visits NYC, Brooklyn and Queens to gain two state Senate seats, and why fertility benefits are the next wave in employer health care plans.

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By the numbers:  

  • New positive cases statewide: 9,148

    • New positive cases, NYC: 3,072 

  • NYC Positivity Rate: 3.6 percent (-0.4 percent)

  • NYC Hospitalizations: 2,633 (-193)

  • Statewide Vaccine Progress: 

    • Percentage of all New Yorkers with least one dose: 87.7 percent

    • Percentage of all New Yorkers who are fully vaccinated: 74.3 percent

Today’s latest: 

  • While Omicron is finally on its way out, it continues to take the lives of roughly 2,600 Americans per day on average. (Axios) In NYC, hospitalizations have significantly declined compared to early January, but remain higher than pre-Omicron levels. (Gothamist)

  • President Biden visited NYC today, and alongside Gov. Hochul, Mayor Adams, and Attorney General Garland, promised federal support to combat gun violence. (ABC 7)  

  • With the approval of new redistricting maps, NYC will pick up two more seats in the state legislature — one representing Brooklyn and another Queens — at the expense of at least three combined upstate districts. (New York Post) The new maps are now awaiting review and passage into law by Gov. Hochul.

  • Medicare will start covering the cost of eight rapid at-home COVID-19 tests per month purchased at participating pharmacies and retailers, likely starting in early spring. (CNBC)

  • For the past year, scientists have been looking for the source of strange coronavirus sequences that appeared in NYC's wastewater but were never reported in human patients. Researchers have no idea where they came from, but there is no evidence that the lineages pose more risk than current major variants. (New York Times)

In other reading:

  • The Covid Vaccine We Need Now May Not Be a Shot (New York Times)

  • Why do some people get Covid when others don’t? Here’s what we know so far (CNBC)

  • The COVID Jerk (The Atlantic)

Employers are beefing up benefits packages across the board to entice workers in a tight labor market, including fertility benefits like in-vitro fertilization and egg freezing, writes Axios.

  • Benefits around family-building have long been overlooked by both employer health care plans and the health care system more broadly, but employers are increasingly taking the lead in changing that.

We spoke to Maven founder and CEO Kate Ryder, who said the market for fertility and family-building benefits is very active right now because there is a growing understanding of how they benefit both the needs of employees and employers:

  • “One in eight couples suffer from infertility, and 63 percent of LGBTQIA+ millennials plan to grow their families, but traditional healthcare has delivered a one-size-fits-all model that often excludes these patients.”

  • And employers are hyper-focused on building inclusive cultures to better attract top talent, so “all the incentives are aligned.”

Maven, which became the first US unicorn dedicated to women’s and family health in August 2021, is tackling the problem by working directly with companies to design their benefits offerings, provide a 24/7 telemedicine network, and partner with specialty pharmacies through its MavenRx program.

According to a 2021 Mercer report, companies have avoided extending fertility benefits due to cost concerns, but the number of fertility clinics and demand for their services has significantly grown in recent years, driving down cost.

  • 97 percent of employers who provide this coverage say it has not resulted in a significant increase in medical plan costs.

  • 11 percent of employers with 500+ employees covered egg freezing in 2020, compared to just 5 percent in 2015.

These trends are moving in the right direction, says Ryder, but there’s more to do:

  • “The next chapter in this story is moving beyond serving the healthcare needs of employees on a condition by condition basis, and instead thinking of their experiences holistically. Parenthood is a physical, emotional, financial, and social experience. Companies that can support the full range of their employees’ needs as their families grow are positioning themselves to have a durable advantage in the new world of work.”

In other reading: 

  • Ask a tech worker: Are your colleagues quitting? (Protocol)

  • Al fresco: more offices are warming to outdoor workspaces (WorkLife)

  • How to ‘Marie Kondo’ your sidebar, and other Notion tricks (Protocol)

  • Cerby, a New York City-based cybersecurity startup focused on non-IT managed apps, raised $12 million in new funding. Ridge Ventures led the round and was joined by Founders Fund, Gokul Rajaram, Okta Ventures, and Salesforce Ventures. (VentureBeat)

  • RareCircles, a New York City-based NFT memberships platform, raised $7.5m million in seed funding. Tiger Global led the round and was joined by White Star Capital, Hashed, Alpaca, Crew Capital, Global Founders Capital, Alumni Ventures, and Detroit Venture Partners. (Newswire)

  • Summus Global, a New York City-based virtual specialist platform, raised $22 million in new funding. Danaher Corporation co-founder Mitchell Rales and the Glenstone Foundation led the round. (PR Newswire)

  • Waldo, a Brooklyn-based no-code test automation platform for mobile apps, raised $15 million in Series A funding. Insight Partners led the round and was joined by Matrix Partners, First Round Capital, Algolia founder Nicolas Dessaigne, Looker co-founder Ben Porterfield, and Zenhub CEO Tyler Gaffney. (FinSMEs)

  • February 8: Virtual: The changing role of the CIO, with Honeywell chief digital technology officer Sheila Jordan, ServiceNow CIO, Chris Bedis, and others. Hosted by Protocol. Register here.

  • February 9: Virtual: Crypto regulation: from buyer beware to federal oversight, with Blockchain Association executive director Kristin Smith, Inx general counsel Cathy Yoon, and others. Hosted by Protocol. Register here.

  • February 10: Virtual: How to Raise Funding and Scale a Startup, with New York Angels founder David S. Rose, Caribu CEO Maxeme Tuchman, and more. Hosted by DownToDash and Innovatemap. Register here.

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