Tech:NYC Digest: July 13

Tech:NYC Digest: July 13

July 13, 2021 • Estimated Reading Time: 11 minutes

Tuesday, July 13, 2021

In today’s digest, a new tally of primary votes brings us closer to final results, the Delta variant is largely to blame for six consecutive days of positivity rates above one percent in NYC, and our conversation with Spotify Chief R&D Officer Gustav Söderström uncovers insights into a decade of skyrocketing growth.

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It’s been a nailbiter of a few weeks when it comes to NYC’s primaries, but just as in the last few Tuesdays, the Board of Elections released another tally of results, this time a “nearly complete” update of the races.

Today’s tally is one that includes all absentee and affidavit ballots. Here’s what we know:

  • Eric Adams maintained his lead in the race for mayor, but it got even narrower. He now leads ex-Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia by 7,153 votes, or about 0.8 percent, in the final round of ranked choice elimination. (New York Daily News) You can see the latest round-by-round results here.

  • The leads for Public Advocate, Comptroller, and most Borough Presidents were largely unchanged; incumbent Queens Borough President Donovan Richards maintained his lead over Elizabeth Crowley, but just by 1,044 votes, or 0.6 percent.

  • A handful of City Council races are also still tight races; you can check out results for your district here.

The threshold to require a manual recount is 0.5 percent. The only remaining ballots to be counted are those pending from voters “curing” errors on their mail-in ballots, and barring any surprises, they likely won’t be enough to cross any results into recount territory.

According to the BOE, the final results are expected to be certified next week.

In other news:

  • The city is seeing a slight uptick in COVID-19 average positivity rates. NYC reported a seven-day average positivity of 1.28 percent today, the sixth day in a row it’s been over one percent and trending up. (NBC New York) The good news, though, is nearly three-quarters of all adults in the state have now received at least one vaccine dose. (Gothamist)

  • Upon returning to school this fall, students and teachers will be required to wear masks, even if they’re fully vaccinated. The mask mandate differs from new CDC guidance last week suggesting vaccinated kids and adults can safely ditch their masks inside classrooms. Additional health and safety guidance will be coming over the next few weeks. (New York Daily News)

  • The Long Island Rail Road is considering new ticket types, which would reflect how often and when people ride the train. The move comes after sales of the railroad’s monthly commuter passes have plummeted, which coincides with two major changes in commuting during the pandemic: traditional commuters working from home more often, and the railroad suspending peak pricing during rush hours. (Newsday)

In 2009, right after Spotify launched in Europe, the service had a few hundred thousand users. A decade later, it has a staggering 350+ million users, some 50 offices globally — including a large presence in NYC — and a position as the leading on-demand music service.

Much of that growth has been led by Gustav Söderström, and for this month’s edition of our Cornell Tech @ Bloomberg speaker series, we spoke to him about the company’s success. You can stream the full conversation here.

Söderström is Spotify’s Chief Research & Development Officer — think a CTO and chief product officer rolled into one, where he oversees the product, design, data, and engineering teams.

  • ‌In recent years, the company’s product strategy has moved beyond music, spending over $1 billion in podcast-related acquisitions and, more recently, announcing the launch of paid podcast subscriptions and a push into live audio. Söderström and his team are at work developing a new version of Spotify’s product with a greater emphasis on this larger variety of audio formats.

He’s also an entrepreneur and investor in his own right — he’s co-founded a couple of startups, including Kenet Works, a messaging service that was one of the first to bring the internet to mobile platforms, which was acquired by Yahoo! in 2006.

In his conversation with Bloomberg TV’s Scarlet Fu, Söderström discusses those early companies, his path to entrepreneurship, and some of the defining moments in Spotify’s skyrocketing growth: how music piracy inspired Spotify’s initial insights; how users’ music listening and sharing habits changed during the pandemic; why live audio apps are finally having a moment; and how Spotify largely became the R&D arm for the entire music industry.Stream the full conversation on demand here.

  • Elevate Brands, an Amazon merchant rollup platform, raised $250 million in equity and debt funding from firms like FJ Labs and Novel TMT. (TechCrunch)

  • Female Founders Fund, a New York-based seed stage venture fund investing exclusively in female-founded companies, closed a Fund III of $57 million to bring its total money under management to $95 million. Backers include Goldman Sachs, Melinda French Gates’ Pivotal Ventures, and Twitter, as well as YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, 23andMe CEO Annie Wojcicki, and Houseparty CEO Sima Sistani. (CNBC)

  • Mark43, a New York City-based maker of software for law enforcement, raised $101 million in Series E funding. The Spruce House Partnership and Tiger Global Management led the round. (FinSMEs)

  • omniX Labs, a New York-based SaaS service delivering vehicle analytics for businesses, raised $2.9 million in seed funding. Investors include C2 Ventures, EverWash, and Newark Venture Partners, among others. (GlobeNewswire)

  • Quantexa, a New York City-based data intelligence company for financial crime prevention, raised $153 million in Series D funding. Warburg Pincus led the round, with existing backers Dawn Capital, AlbionVC, Evolution Equity Partners, HSBC, ABN AMRO Ventures, and British Patient Capital also participating. (TechCrunch)

  • Remote, a New York-based platform providing tools to manage onboarding, payroll, benefits, and other services for tech and other knowledge workers located in remote countries, raised $150 million in Series B funding. Accel led the round, with participation from previous investors Sequoia, Index Ventures, Two Sigma, General Catalyst, and Day One Ventures. (Crunchbase News)

  • 43North, a Buffalo, NY-based accelerator investing in seed stage startups, is seeking applications for its next cohort. Selected companies get access to one-on-one mentorship sessions and up to $1 million in fundraising and marketing support. Learn more and apply by July 19 here.

  • Barnard College’s Athena Center for Leadership is seeking a Director of Applied Learning and Entrepreneurship. The role will support students through a co-curricular academic year program and self-directed projects, with an emphasis on those that become larger entrepreneurial ventures. Learn more and apply here.

  • Day One, an accelerator for early stage entrepreneurs, is accepting applications for its fifth cohort. The 10-week program is one part course, where you learn the fundamentals of validating a startup; one part coaching, where you receive hands-on guidance; and one part community, where you get access to peers, investors, and other founders. Learn more and apply here.

  • The New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) is seeking proposals to pilot innovative solutions to speed economic recovery in the cultural and creative sectors. The competition is an initiative of the Global Innovation Collaborative, a partnership between NYC and several global cities offering access to city systems, services, and staff to pilot ground-breaking new programs in local government. Learn more and apply by July 20 here.

  • The New York Clean Transportation Prizes, a program administered by NYSERDA, is offering funding support to organizations with innovative solutions in at least one of three areas: air pollution reduction and clean neighborhoods; electric mobility; and electrified medium- and heavy-duty truck and bus transportation. Learn more and register your proposal by July 22.

The recently renovated Serendipity3, long known as an old-school dessert destination in the UES, reopened last Friday and broke its tenth Guinness World Record. This time? A plate of $200 French fries. And perhaps not coincidentally, today is National French Fry Day. So if you’re feeling celebratory and spendy, we say go for it.

PS: remember that viral headline a few years back suggesting the right portion of french fries was just six of them? Turns out,

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