Thursday, May 22, 2025

May 22, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 10 minutes

Thursday, May 22, 2025 

Happy Bitcoin Pizza Day! In today’s digest, ferry good ferry service, a May nor’easter, and NYC student founders balancing school and startups. 🎓

  • Programming note: We’ll be off tomorrow and Monday in observance of Memorial Day Weekend. We’ll be back in your inboxes on Tuesday.

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  • NYC Economic Development Corporation just released its monthly Economic Snapshot, and (spoiler alert) it’s good news. 💸 The city added 6,300 private sector jobs in April and reached a new record for total jobs. Unemployment fell to 5%, marking the fourth straight month of improvement. 📈 (NYCEDC)

    • Read the full report, which includes figures like NYC mass transit ridership and Broadway attendance, here.

  • April showers bring May flowers… and May is bringing a nor’easter. But if you’re wondering if the stormy weather will clear up before Memorial Day Weekend, the answer is yes! (NBC New York) 

    • Saturday and Sunday will be in the 60s, with 70s finally emerging on Monday. 🌻

    • According to historical climate data, there have only been two May nor’easters in the last 35 years.

  • In an effort to attract more beach-goers to the shore, NYC Ferry service is expanding service to the Rockaways this summer, meaning you can get to the beach in style. Get more details on the Rockaway Reserve and Rockaway Rocket, which will become available Memorial Weekend and July 4, respectively. 🚢 (amNY)


In other reading:

  • NYC temporarily renames streets after Knicks players ahead of 2025 (Bleacher Report)

  • Who’s running for borough president — and why you should care (The CITY)

  • Where to eat at John F. Kennedy airport in NYC (Eater NY)

Not only is NYC the top destination for new grads, but the city also retains 66% of its graduates — higher than the Bay Area or Boston. 🤝

  • NYC schools graduated over 87,000 AI-relevant degree holders from 2018-2023. 🧠

  • Tech:NYC and Accenture’s report on Generative AI in NYC found that nearly 90% of local tech company execs are confident in their abilities to secure AI skills from the city’s talent pool. 🤓

It’s clear that New York’s colleges and universities are setting students up to be successful technologists and tech founders. 

🧑‍🎓 As graduation season hits full swing, let’s meet six New York student founders from five startups who are successfully running companies while balancing the full-time job of school.

Here’s what each had to say about why they’re finding success founding companies in NYC. 🗽

👋 NYU Stern’s Julia Kingsley, founder of Context Data, which helps SMBs and lean teams turn internal data, documents, and systems into secure, custom AI tools without any engineering resources:

  • “[New York City’s] ambition, urgency, and energy push you to move faster and think bigger.” 

👋 Cornell Tech’s Ryan Hardesty Lewis, founder of Polyrook, which generates complete, customizable 3D environments — terrain, props, lighting — in seconds:

  • “Cornell Tech provides research, while film and game studios are a subway stop away. If we can keep up with a city that never sleeps, we can scale anywhere.”

👋 Baruch College’s Souadou Bah, founder of PulseBridge, a digital platform that helps immigrant-led community organizations stay organized and connected:

  • “[New York is] where cultures meet, and where community-led innovation thrives. There’s no better place to build a platform like PulseBridge than right here.”

👋 New York Institute of Technology’s Pari Patel and Ryan Ahmed, cofounders of Niura, smart earbuds that can pick up on your brain’s natural electrical activity, which reflect how your brain is functioning when you're focused, distracted, or stressed:

  • Pari: “NYC gives us access to the most diverse, driven early adopters in the world from young professionals grinding in finance and media, to creatives building the next big thing in Brooklyn.”

👋 NYU Tandon’s Asser El Ashwah, founder of Vitalis, which develops personalized surgical materials that help the body heal faster by actively engaging biology during procedures:

  • “NYC feels like setting your life to hard mode, but in a way that makes you better. People here don’t just dream big, they execute relentlessly.”

In other reading:

  • New York Mayor Eric Adams is creating a Crypto Advisory Council (Coindesk)

  • It’s time to kill the casual workplace (Intelligencer)

  • Google partners With Warby Parker, Kering to develop AI glasses (Wall Street Journal)

  • Filed, an NYC-based tax prep platform, raised $17.3 million in pre-seed and seed funding from Northzone, Day One Ventures, J Ventures, Neo, Raine, and Greens Ventures

  • Siro, an NYC-based sales rep coaching platform, raised $50 million in Series B funding. SignalFire led, joined by 01 Advisors.

  • ⭐ June 2-8: NY Tech Week, a decentralized tech conference featuring 900+ events throughout the city. Get Tech:NYC’s guide here. ⭐

    • June 3: NYC AI Demos with Tech:NYC, Pensar, and Two Trees, ​featuring technical demos from well known enterprises and early-stage startups. Request an invite here.

    • June 4: J.P. Morgan Payments x Tech:NYC Fintech Media Breakfast, bringing together leading tech journalists to explore how fintech innovation is transforming industries and shaping media coverage. Request an invite here.

  • May 23: NYPL’s free job fair & expo, focusing on tech sector jobs. Employers can apply to table at the event here. 

  • May 28: Go for Growth: Mastering Strategy, Technology, People, and Culture for Long-Term Success, a virtual event for pre-IPO and growth-focused companies to get insights, connections, and a roadmap to scale. Register here.

  • May 28: FirstGen Founders Powering American Dynamism, a gathering spotlighting the immigrant and first-gen entrepreneurs building the next wave of American industries. Register here.

  • May 29: Tech Brew’s Navigating the Intersection of Energy and Transportation event, exploring the future of transportation and energy with experts in charging infrastructure, grid management, and energy resilience. Register here.

  • May 30: NYC Coffee Club for early-stage B2B SaaS founders & funders, a no-stress way to connect with NYC VCs and founders. Register here.

  • June 2: AI Startup Pitch Day, where NYC’s top pre-seed AI startups will take the stage to pitch their startups to a roomful of 100 investors with a grand prize of $50K. Investors, register here. 

  • June 4: Generative AI in the Built Environment, a networking breakfast and panel exploring how generative AI is reshaping design, development, and operations across the built world. Register here.

  • June 5: Runway’s third annual AI Film Festival, a celebration of the art and artists embracing new and emerging AI tools for filmmaking. Register here.

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