Tech:NYC Digest: May 22

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Monday, May 22, 2023

In today’s digest, the changes to expect in your public transportation budget, one easy fix for connecting asylum seekers to jobs in NYC, and the data point putting Manhattan early-stage startups the top spot over San Francisco. 

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• The MTA is proposing (long-delayed) increases for subway, bus, and commuter rails to take effect no later than Labor Day Weekend. (Gothamist)

  • Under new proposals unveiled today, the cost of a single subway or bus trip would go from $2.75 to $2.90 per trip. Thirty-day unlimited MetroCard trips will go from $127 to $132, and the seven-day unlimited will increase by a dollar to $34. 

  • But remember, after 12 paid swipes using OMNY — which currently costs straphangers $33 — the fare cap program makes all rides for the rest of that week free.

• In a joint appearance today, Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams asked the federal government to speed up work authorizations for migrants seeking asylum. (New York Daily News)

  • Currently, a 180-day waiting period prevents asylum seekers from being considered for a legal work permit, forcing arriving families to depend on increasingly dwindling housing and legal services from the city.  

In other reading:

• New York’s professional workforce is becoming less white (Crain’s New York)

• Why Restaurants in Manhattan Are the New Nightclubs (Wall Street Journal)

• A new outdoor exhibit celebrating New York’s iconic diners (Time Out New York)

Here’s one data point the Tech:NYC team is paying close attention to: New York County (aka Manhattan) recorded the largest number of early-stage startups in the US for the first time — even more than San Francisco. (Crain’s New York)

• According to data from Carta, 543 Manhattan-based companies raised a seed or Series A round in the 12 months ending March 2023, compared to 486 San Francisco companies in the same period.

Yes, but: How the boundaries of counties and cities are defined — much less “tech hubs” — gets complicated, and the Bay Area more broadly still leads by a considerable amount compared to NYC overall.

• But if you take Manhattan vs. San Francisco, says Carta’s head of insights Peter Walker, the two “are basically neck and neck as of late.”

• The latest data indicates total invested capital to San Francisco startups was $1.7B in Q1 2023, compared to $1.2B in Manhattan during the same time.

• The difference between the two was even smaller in Q3 and Q4 or 2022.

However you slice the data, it’s clear New York is inching closer and closer to the top spot: The last five years of research Tech:NYC has undertaken with global innovation firm Startup Genome has consistently put Silicon Valley and NYC in the top two spots globally, with the gap between the two becoming narrower.

• “There was a concern that location doesn’t matter anymore, and that would be great for Manhattan,” Celonis co-CEO Alexander Rinke told Crain’s New York. When he was choosing a city to open a US headquarters, he chose NYC for the diversity of employers and momentum of smaller startups. “We haven’t regretted it.”

What we’ll be watching: How Manhattan’s position is fortified even further when you add in the startup activity in the outer boroughs and the larger metro region. In many ways, it’s more accurate to describe NYC less as a single “tech hub” and more as a “hub of hubs” — downtown Brooklyn, Long Island City, and several other nodes are building their own ecosystems. The result is a highly-networked sector that’s uniquely New York.

In other reading:

• Why the chief revenue officer is the fastest growing job title in the US (Fast Company)

• Who Would Want to Be a CEO? (New York Times)

• Returning to the Office Is Killing My Budget (Wall Street Journal)

• CTVC, a NYC-based climate tech market intelligence platform, raised $1.75 million in pre-seed funding. Participating investors include AccelR8 and a group of individuals.

• Synco, a NYC-based real-time messaging platform for property management teams, raised $5.5 million in seed funding. Participating investors include MetaProp and a group of developers and other individuals.

• May 25: In-person: Building with A DEI Lens, featuring Mathison founder Arthur Woods and The Venture Collective general partner Cat Middleton. Hosted by Company Ventures. Register here.

• May 30: In-person: Cornell Tech @ Bloomberg speaker series, featuring Duolingo co-founder and CEO Luis von Ahn. Hosted by Tech:NYC, Cornell Tech, and Bloomberg. Register here.

• May 30: In-person: FoodNiche Summit 2023, with NYC Mayor’s Office of Food Policy executive director Kate MacKenzie, Tastewise CEO Alon Chen, AgroFresh CTO Duncan Aust, and more. Hosted by FoodNiche. Register here.

• June 1: Virtual: The Future of Clean Tech Innovations, with Sol Systems CEO Yuri Horwitz, Arcadia COO Kate Henningsen, and GRAIN Ecosystem co-founder Jason Dodier. Hosted by Savills. Register here.

• June 6: In-person: Newlab Resilient Studio Showcase, with ElectricFish, Orenda Power, Urban Electric Power, WATTMORE, and Yotta Energy. Hosted by Newlab, NYCEDC, and ConEd. Register here.

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