Tech:NYC Digest: May 12

May 12, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

Friday, May 12, 2023

We’re back with another “Friday Five” roundup of our top stories in New York tech this week.

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Solana Labs opens 25,000-square-foot space at the old Sunshine Cinema (Crain’s New York)

Tech:NYC got to co-host the official opening party yesterday to welcome the blockchain firm to NYC! The new HQ is not just office space for Solana staff — most of it is reserved for entrepreneurs building on the Solana platform to co-work, free of charge. We’re excited to see Solana plant a flag here and build the kind of community space that embodies the spirit that sets New York apart from other tech hubs around the world.

How These Budding Entrepreneurs Won $20,000 for Their Startups (New York Times)

Call it the NYCHA Accelerator. A new competition was launched to encourage New Yorkers who live in public housing to pursue their own businesses, with winners receiving the cash prizes and a package of free business development programs. The accelerator model is seeing a fresh spike in interest as VCs look to bulk up seed-stage investing — it’s great to see the idea applied in (even non-tech) ways where it can have outsized impact.

Pinecone drops $100M investment as vector databases sector grows (TechCrunch)

With all the new attention on large language models, more companies are seeing value in vector databases — and apparently, so are investors. Pinecone’s Series B is one of the rare megarounds we’ve logged in New York this year, given the current VC environment. It could be a signal that highly technical data tools will be one answer for startups trying to get through current market uncertainties.

Citi Bike at Ten: ‘We Were Riding in a City That Simply Hadn’t Existed Just a Few Years Earlier’ (Curbed)

On launch day in 2013, 6,050 trips were made. The most recent all-time daily high was in September 2022, with more than 138,000 rides. A total of 180 million rides have been made to date. Some still say it was a miracle the bike network launched at all, but by all accounts, it’s been a major success. Now let’s expand it (and while we’re at it, more dedicated bike lanes!) to even more neighborhoods!

New York’s Most Inventive Pizzas Are Cooked Up at Pop-Ups (New York Times)

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