Tech:NYC Digest: June 3

Tech:NYC Digest: June 3

June 03, 2021 • Estimated Reading Time: 12 minutes

Thursday, June 3, 2021In today’s digest, 100+ New York tech leaders call on the state to expand and protect New York’s voting laws, how companies can encourage voter turnout, and making your plan for how to vote (and who for!) in the June 22 primary election.Was this digest forwarded to you? Subscribe here.

In less than three weeks, New Yorkers will effectively elect the city’s next mayor in the Democratic primaries, as well as new leadership in dozens of other races. Voter turnout in New York’s primary elections is notoriously low, and we need to do everything possible to make sure voting in our state is modern, efficient, and most importantly, accessible. 

Today, more than 100 tech leaders are calling on New York’s state leaders to adopt a list of common sense reforms that support a free and fair right to vote. Read the full letter here.

  • Signatories include founders, CEOs, and investors from NYC tech companies of all sizes. Among them are Warby Parker’s Neil Blumenthal and Dave Gilboa, Squarespace’s Anthony Casalena, General Catalyst’s Ken Chenault, FirstMark Capital’s Beth Ferreira, AlleyCorp’s Kevin Ryan, Girls Who Code’s Reshma Saujani, Oscar Health’s Mario Schlosser, and Union Square Ventures’ Fred Wilson.

A national movement at home: Ongoing efforts to affirm voting rights in states like Georgia, Florida, and Texas call to attention the urgency for doing the same here in New York. In the last two years, significant strides have been made by implementing early voting and adopting automatic voter registration, but in some ways we’re still far behind. Specifically, here are measures we are advocating for:

  • Fully funding local boards of election to adapt and keep up with voting rights expansion;

  • Explicitly banning and creating real-world remedies for voter suppression and voter dilution;

  • Allowing for curing technical errors in absentee ballots;

  • And other reasonable expansions of voting access.

Why it matters: Voting in New York is notoriously complicated, and so perhaps unsurprisingly, turnout has been notoriously low. That’s especially true for primary elections, where in the last new mayor contest in 2013, barely 20 percent of registered voters went to the ballot box. 

  • The mechanics of voting will also be front and center for the upcoming June 22 primary, where NYC will implement ranked choice voting for the first time citywide. For more on RCV, Rank the Vote is a helpful resource (with mock ballots to use for practice!).

Beyond the primaries: later this year, New Yorkers will also vote on amendments to the state’s constitution that would allow "no excuse" absentee ballots, greatly expanding vote-by-mail. (NY State of Politics)

In other reading:

  • How to Vote in the NYC Primary in June (New York Times)

  • NYC is using ranked choice voting in its primaries. Here’s why that means it could take weeks to get results. (CNN)

  • Harris Asked to Lead on Voting Rights. She Has Her Work Cut Out for Her. (New York Times)

  • Voting Laws Roundup: May 2021 (Brennan Center for Justice)

Tech:NYC’s open letter joined by 100+ NYC tech leaders makes a clear business case for taking a harder look at ballot access in New York. (Crain’s NY)

  • "We saw so many people in the private sector engaged on issues around voting rights in other states and we realized we need to be paying attention to what is happening in our own backyard," said our own Julie Samuels.

This effort is a local addition to the push being made by tech companies and the larger business community across the nation. (Washington  Post)

  • In April, a statement from major tech companies including Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter was released in opposition to the numerous anti-voting rights laws going through statehouses across the country.

  • As we wrote in our letter, most employees in the New York tech sector care about voting access. A commitment to civic engagement is one of many reasons why companies are increasingly choosing New York to build and hire, and why the legislature must do everything possible to live up to those democratic ideals.

Companies are also taking the lessons learned in last year’s presidential election and applying them for the city’s races this year. (Brennan Center for Justice) They’re still good ideas this time around:

  • Providing all employees with paid time off to vote and/or work as a volunteer at a polling site;

  • Providing absentee ballot applications to employees who’d prefer to vote by mail due to COVID-19 (deadline to request one is June 15!);

  • Pointing employees to verified, nonpartisan voter education resources to inform them of their options for voting in their jurisdictions;

  • Using brand, marketing, and customer support resources to provide customers with similar voter education resources.

New York tech stands ready to help: “We are aligned with the state Legislature on this," Samuels said. "We'd just like to offer to give a push and get it over the finish line."

New York’s primary election is officially June 22, but voting in fact starts earlier and goes later. The in-person early voting period lasts from June 12 to June 20 (check your early voting poll site

), and mail-in votes can be sent up until June 22 and received by June 29 to be counted. Do you have a voting plan yet?

  • *|SURVEY: I plan to vote in person on Primary Day|*

  • *|SURVEY: I plan to vote in person during the early voting period|*

  • *|SURVEY: I plan to vote via absentee/mail-in ballot|*

  • *|SURVEY: I don’t plan to vote|*

  • Celonis, a Munich- and New York City-based enterprise software company focused on data analysis, raised $1 billion in Series D funding, valuing it at $11 billion. Durable Capital Partners and T. Rowe Price Associates led the round, and were joined by investors Franklin Templeton, Splunk Ventures, and Arena Holdings. (Forbes)

  • Intrinsic, a New York City-based company acquiring health and wellness e-commerce companies, raised $113 million in Series A funding. Define Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including Link Ventures. (Wall Street Journal)

  • Jeeves, a New York-based expense management platform, raised $26 million in Series A funding. Andreessen Horowitz led, and was joined by YC Continuity Fund, Jaguar Ventures, Urban Innovation Fund, Uncorrelated Ventures, Clocktower Ventures, Stanford University, 9 Yards Capital and BlockFi Ventures. Jeeves also secured $100 million in debt funding. (TechCrunch)

  • New Stand, a New York-based physical vending product developer, raised $40 million in Series B funding. Brookfield Property Group led, and was joined by insiders Maywic, Fantail Ventures and Raga Partners. (TechCrunch)

  • Norbert Health, a New York-based developer of contactless vital sign scanners, raised $5 million in Seed II funding. The round was co-led by Serena Capital and HCVC, with Exor, C4 Ventures, LDV Capital and Newlab joining in. (Crunchbase News)

  • Paloma, a New York City-based sales communication company, raised $4 million in seed funding. Laconia Capital Group led the round and was joined by investors including Philip Krim from Casper and David Heath from Bombas. (FinSMEs)

  • Synchron, a New York City-based neurotechnology company developing brain-machine interfaces, raised $40 million in Series B funding. Khosla Ventures led the round and was joined by investors Forepont Capital Partners, ID8 Investments, Shanda Group, General Advance, Subversive Capital, re.Mind Capital, NeuroTechnology Investors, METIS Innovative, and the University of Melbourne. (BusinessWire)

  • June 8: Virtual: Startup CXO: Scaling Up Your Company’s Critical Functions and Teams, with Bolster co-founder and CEO Matt Blumberg. Hosted by Betaworks Studios. Register here.

  • June 9: Virtual: Cap Tables, Fundraising, and Early Stage Startups, with Techstars managing director KJ Singh. Hosted by brunchwork. Register here.

  • June 9: The New Seed Strategy: Nomenclature, Check Sizes, and Does it Even Matter, with Lerer Hippeau partner Andrea Hippeau, Eniac Ventures general partner Nihal Mehta, Cowboy Ventures principal Jillian Williams, and Brooklyn Bridge Ventures partner Charlie O’Donnell. Register here.

  • June 9: Virtual: Machines + Media 2021: Facing the Future, with Tech:NYC founder and executive director Julie Samuels, Primary Venture Partners co-founder Ben Sun, NYCEDC Senior Vice President of Tech Karen Bhatia, and more. Hosted by NYC Media Lab and Bloomberg. Register here.

  • June 10: Virtual: Rebuilding and Revitalizing NYC’s Businesses and Workforce, with NYC Deputy CTO Alexis Wichowski, Cornell Tech’s Urban Technology Hub founding director Michael Samuelian, Bronx Community Foundation co-founder Derrick Lewis, and Company Ventures’ Urban Tech Hub executive director Robinson Hernandez. Register here.

  • June 10: Virtual: NYC’s Comeback: Attracting Back Remote Workers, with Union Square Hospitality Group CEO Danny Meyer, Partnership for New York City CEO Kathryn Wylde, Regional Plan Association CEO Tom Wright, and Manhattan Chamber of Commerce CEO Jessica Walker. Register here.

ICYMI: THE CITY has a very helpful tool for anyone who still needs to read up on the primary candidates.

is a collection of 15 issue-specific quizzes that tell you which candidates best match your positions. And

is the mega-quiz that combines all 15 topics into one. It’ll give you your best matches, but how you rank them — that’s up to you. Find your election day poll site and see your sample ballot

.

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