Monday, June 30, 2025

June 30, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 10 minutes

Monday, June 30, 2025 

In today’s digest, New York City’s budget gets finalized, free fireworks tix, and VC Matt Harrigan shares tips for founder pitches. 💡

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  • Adams 🤝 Adams. Mayor Eric Adams and City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams have finalized the $116 billion budget for the next fiscal year. (City & State) The budget includes:

    • A pilot program to provide free child care for children 2 and under for hundreds of low-income families.

    • Funding for computer science programming in NYC public schools.

    • Legal assistance for migrants and migrant children who arrived without their parents or legal guardians.

    • The creation of a new Division of Sustainable Delivery to regulate e-bikes.

  • The MTA plans to raise fares by 4% (and nix the sale of MetroCards) by the end of the year. That means a subway or bus ride will soon cost at least $3. (Gothamist)

  • Need a prime fireworks-watching spot for Fourth of July festivities? Look no further. The city is giving away 100,000 free tickets to the Macy’s fireworks show. 🎆 (amNY)

    • The tickets are for designated viewing areas in Brooklyn Bridge Park and sections of Pier 16 and Pier 17 at The Seaport.

    • Tickets will go live at 8:30am tomorrow (Tuesday, July 1), and will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis.

    • Reserve your tix here.

+ One more thing: Tech:NYC President and CEO Julie Samuels spoke with Fortune about how it’s too early to tell what the impact of Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani’s presumptive primary win will be on the NYC tech ecosystem. The reason? None of the candidates really engaged on tech issues during the campaign. Read her take here.

In other reading:

  • This NYC pizzeria was just named one of the best in the world — beating out dozens in Italy (Secret NYC)

  • Dirty clothes, clean fun: These laundromats aren’t just for laundry (New York Times)

  • Doggie Restaurant Week is returning to New York next month (TimeOut New York)

Matt Harrigan, managing partner and CEO of Company Ventures, knew over a decade ago that NYC would be an innovative hub of technology and innovation. 🗽

  • “It was clear to me back in 2014 that tech was ascendant and would ultimately change the culture and economy of New York City,” he told us.

Since then, Matt has gone on to found Company Ventures, which hosts a number of initiatives and fellowships to engage the NYC founder community, most notably the Grand Central Tech Residency (applications for their fall cohort are now open!), a year-long program that offers founders the ability to work with Company Ventures without a rent or equity commitment.

The results: Company Ventures has supported more than 380 founders across 200+ companies, who have collectively raised $4.2+ billion in funding. 💪

For our latest VC Spotlight, we caught up with Matt to discuss his career, how he thinks the VC industry should evolve over the next 5-10 years, what he looks for in pitches, and much more.

Here’s a preview of what Matt had to say:

  • 💸 On the evolution of VC firms over the next 5-10 years:

    • “It’s going to sound silly, but venture firms need to actually add value. And if you set aside the venture marketing (brainwashing) we’ve all consumed for the past however many years, the fact will remain that starting new ventures that aspire to massive outcomes is extraordinarily hard work.”

  • 🧑‍💻 On the most common mistake he sees from founder pitches:

    • “Pitches should have a narrative. They are a world-building exercise. To create a billion-dollar outcome something about the world as it is currently needs to change.”

  • 🤖 On an exciting recent investment:

    • Flora, “an all-in-one production environment for creatives that is fast, context-aware, multi-player, and AI native from the ground up.”

  • 🍕 And of course, on the best slice in the city:

    • F&F on Court St.

In other reading:

  • How do you teach computer science in the AI era? (New York Times)

  • Why tech billionaires want bots to be your BFF (Wall Street Journal)

  • AI job substitution is real, but narrow, per new study (Axios)

  • Claira, an NYC-based deals intelligence platform, raised $7 million led by Barclays, Citi, and Reimagine Tech Ventures, with participation from Activant Capital, KDX, OPCO Ventures, and Glezbeck Ventures.

  • Foresight, an NYC-based private market data provider, raised $5.5 million in seed funding. NEA led, joined by KDX Ventures.

  • Handspring, an NYC-based provider of virtual mental health therapy, raised $12 million in Series A funding. Cobalt Ventures led, joined by NextView Ventures, Nvp capital, 25madison, Arkitekt Ventures, VamosVentures, Hyde Park Angels, and Cornucopian Capital.

  • OpenRouter, an NYC-based unified interface for large-language-model inference, closed a combined Seed and Series A financing of $40 million led by Andreessen Horowitz and Menlo Ventures, with participation from Sequoia and prominent industry angels.

  • July 1: Build Games Meetup, an evening of gaming, networking, and sharing use cases on building with AI developer tools. Register here.

  • July 2: AI Builders Lunch w/ Next Wave NYC, an intimate lunch bringing together NYC-based AI founders, engineers, and product builders. Register here.

  • July 5: Reverse Networking (AI) Event — Linkedin First, Meet Later, where select ticket holders will be listed on the event page with their LinkedIn profile so attendees can connect in advance and show up with purpose. Register here.

  • July 8-9: What Businesses & Communities Need to Know about the NY Health Information Privacy Act, avirtual webinar series featuring expert panelists who will explain the potential implications of New York State Bill S929 on your organization, should the legislation be enacted. Register here.

  • July 12: Vibe Coding Hackathon, featuring a lightning-round session where attendees can share their favorite tools, tips, and vibe coding setups. Register here.

  • July 15: How to Form an Effective Board, a free breakfast event designed to help startup founders — from pre‑seed through Series A and beyond — build and manage high‑impact boards. Register here.

  • July 16: Borderless’ July Founder Breakfast, ​for seed-stage founders who have raised or are in the process of raising series A, and are now focused on scaling — building the team, refining GTM, and shaping the story for the next round. Register here.

  • July 16: Pitch Deck Bootcamp: Build, Test, & Perfect Your Founder Pitch, where you can build, present, and refine your deck with real feedback from experienced judges and fellow founders. Register here.

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