Tech:NYC Digest: November 16

Tech:NYC Digest: November 16

November 16, 2022 • Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

Wednesday, November 16, 2022

In today’s digest, taxi fares are due for a rate bump, tourism numbers record another boost, and how NYC plans to tackle diversity gaps in tech.

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  • The city lost 19,000 public workers during the coronavirus pandemic, or 6.4% of its workforce. It’s the largest drop in NYC’s public workforce since the Great Recession in 2008. (Bloomberg)

  • NYC cab riders will see a 23% increase in metered fares, the first hike since 2012. Passengers will also face an increase in rush hour and overnight surcharges, as well as flat rates from airport trips. The increases will also affect per-mile and per-minute rates for Uber and Lyft and are expected to go into effect before year-end, according to the city’s Taxi & Limousine Commission. (Gothamist)

  • The city’s first professional soccer stadium will be built across from Citi Field in Queens. (New York Times) The stadium will serve as a permanent home for the New York City Football Club, and as part of the development agreement, it will include the construction of 25,000 new affordable housing units on the site.

  • NYC tourism has now rebounded to 85% of pre-pandemic levels — or 56.4 million annual visitors — according to the city’s tourism bureau. (TimeOut New York)

In other reading:

  • Time to Raise New York City’s Trailing Minimum Wage? (New York Times)

  • 5 Unusual COVID Symptoms — and What to Do About Them (New York Times)

  • The Best Bagels in NYC Right Now (Eater NY)

Yesterday Tech:NYC released new research to update the city’s tech workforce numbers — we thought it was important to run fresh analysis on the sector’s growth that took into account all of the changes forced by the pandemic.

One data segment that stood out: Racial disparities in NYC’s tech workforce have made improvements, but there’s a lot more to be done.

  • More than half of NYC residents — and 35% of the city’s workforce — are Black and Latino/a, but just 22% of Black and Latino/a people work in the city's tech sector.

  • That’s a higher percentage than the number of Black and Hispanic tech workers employed in the other two leading US tech hubs (San Francisco and Boston) combined.

Making NYC tech as diverse as the city itself starts with at the founder level: This week, the New York City Economic Development Corporation announced plans for the second cohort of its Venture Access NYC Founder Fellowship — with an eye toward kickstarting support for underrepresented tech founders. Learn more here.

  • The program began with a pilot program to support eight women and BIPOC-led startups in NYC, and next year, it’s adding five operators to help scale the program to support 100 tech founders. (Crain’s New York Business)

  • Operators signing on to the program include Company Ventures, a seed-stage VC firm; Newlab, a lab and studio focused on social impact-oriented tech solutions, the Tech Incubator at Queens College, among others.

The expanded cohort will have access to the expertise of those organizations, as well as funding, mentorship, business development, and other industry opportunities to help them build  and scale their enterprises in NYC.

In other reading:

  • Aescape, a NYC-based developer of automated massage therapy devices, raised $30 million in Series A funding. Valor Siren Ventures and Valor Equity Partners co-led the round and were joined by Fifth Wall, Alley Robotics Ventures, as well as insiders Crosslink Capital, Alumni Ventures, and Kevin Love. (MarketWatch)

  • Impacked, a NYC-based B2B primary packaging marketplace, raised $2.5 million in seed funding. TenOneTen Ventures led the round. (TechCrunch)

  • Relay Commerce, a NYC-based aggregator of e-commerce software, raised $6.25 million in seed funding. Primary Venture Partners led the round and was joined by Twelve Below, AlleyCorp, and Max Ventures. The company also secured $20m in debt from TriplePoint Capital. (Axios)

  • Zest, a NYC-based gifting app, raised $4.2 million in seed funding. GV led the round and was joined by BoxGroup, Character, Operator Partners, Bungalow Capital, and Company Ventures. (TechCrunch)

  • November 18: In-person and virtual: 10th Annual Official New York Cyber Security Summit, featuring executives from Google, IBM Security, Darktrace, Hacware, and more. Use code TECHNYC22 for $100 off admission by registering here.

  • November 22: In-person and virtual: A fireside chat with Squire Technologies CEO Songe LaRon and Techstars managing director Gary Stewart. Hosted by Techstars and J.P. Morgan. Register here. 

  • November 22: Virtual: #notapitch: Unofficial Feedback on your Idea/Prototype from a VC, with Brooklyn Bridge Ventures partner Charlie O’Donnell. Register here.

  • November 29: In-person: AI Week: Generative AI’s Impact on the Future of Work, with Bloomberg Beta investors Amber Yang and Lori Berenberg. Hosted by Betaworks. Register here.

  • December 2: In-person: A Night of Climate Innovation, Collaboration, and Action, with Dollaride founder and CEO Su Sanni and We Don’t Have Time president Dr. Sweta Chakraborty. Hosted by Urban-x and Newlab. Register here.

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