Tech:NYC Digest: January 3

Tech:NYC Digest: January 3

January 03, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

Tuesday, January 3, 2023

Happy New Year and welcome back! We hope you had a restful break. In today’s digest, we catch you up on some of the news you may have missed while we were out.

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  • Gov. Kathy Hochul on Sunday became the first woman sworn in as governor for a full term in New York. (New York Times) She also released a 12-page list of laws and provisions that will take effect in 2023, including:

    • An increase in the minimum wage to $14.20 statewide (except in NYC, where it’s been $15 for four years).

    • A rule that allows New York voters to cast ballots in person at a polling place other than their assigned location, as long as it’s in the right county and assembly district.

    • And by June, a requirement that every employer provide a convenient, private place for mothers to breastfeed at their place of work.

  • New Dept. of Health data reveals that just 12% of NYC residents have received the COVID-19 bivalent booster shot, with most neighborhoods logging a rate of 10% or less. Plenty of locations across the city remain open to walk-ins (for COVID vaccines and for flu shots too!). Find a site here.

    • And reminder: if you test positive with a COVID home test, you can call NYC’s hotline to request paxlovid treatment with free, same-day home delivery.

  • New York’s first-ever licensed cannabis dispensary has opened, with sales to the public beginning last Thursday at 4:20pm (of course). (Gothamist) This and all future locations display a window sign with a verification QR code confirming the retailer is licensed and that the quality of what you’re buying is regulated by the state. Learn more. 

In other reading:

  • The New York Deal: What Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer Could Do for New York (New York Magazine)

  • The Package Pickup Business Coming to a Bodega Near You (Curbed)

  • The Best (and Worst) of the Year I Ate New York (Grub Street)

For the first edition of the digest back from the holiday break, here’s a short roundup of some of the top tech stories you may have missed. Many of them, notably, point out trends that respond to one topic we expect to follow even more closely in 2023: the evolving future of tech talent. 

As Silicon Valley retrenches, a tech talent shift accelerates (New York Times)

  • Experts are still monitoring exactly what impacts last year’s tech sector layoffs and hiring freezes will have going forward. But the employment reset in tech is accelerating another shift: incumbent industries like healthcare, banking, and retail are ramping up tech hiring in a bid to capture workers with the digital skills they’ll need post-pandemic. New York remains a global hub for many of these industries — cross-sector tech hiring will be a leading indicator for the direction of the city's overall economy in 2023.

 2023 in the year of pay transparency (Axios)

  • More states are following the direction of New York to require employers to post salary ranges on job listings, a standard expected to catch on widely this year. At the end of 2022, 61% of NYC listings on Indeed.com included salary information, up from just 27% a month before the law change. It's yet another tool job candidates will have in their favor as employers compete for talent. 

A wave of job-switching has employers on a training treadmill (New York Times)

  • The pandemic has been marked by higher rates of employee turnover and it’s now having a clearer impact on (declining) productivity. Employers are worried the resources they’ve spent on recruitment and training — only for those hires to leave soon after — aren’t paying off. While economists expect the labor market to cool this year, workplace experts expect high turnover rates to persist, making updates to training programs and other business processes more important.

In other reading:

  • Gynger, a NYC-based flexible finance software provider, raised $21.7 million in seed funding. Upper90 and Vin Ventures co-led the round and were joined by Gradient Ventures (Google’s AI-focused venture fund), m]x[v Capital, Quiet Capital, and Deciens Capital. (TechCrunch)

  • Liberation Labs, a NYC-based fermentation platform for producing alt proteins, raised $20 million in seed funding. Agronomics and Siddhi Capital co-led the round and were joined by CPT Capital, Thia Ventures, 8090 Industries, and Echo. (FinSMEs)

  • User Interviews, a NYC-based app for recruiting customer experience survey participants, raised $27.5 million in Series B funding. Sageview Capital led the round and was joined by Teamworthy, Accomplice, Las Olas VC, Trestle Ventures, ValueStream, Remarkable Ventures, and FJ Labs. (TechCrunch)

  • January 9: Virtual: How to get a startup job in a tough economy, with Brooklyn Bridge Ventures partner Charlie O’Donnell. Register here.

  • January 18: In-person: Building a Marketplace: Advice for Founders and Product Teams, with AptDeco CEO Reham Fagiri, Grailed CEO Arun Gupta, and Transfix CTO Jonathan Salama. Hosted by Union Square Ventures and Stacklist. Register here.

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