Thursday, May 28, 2026
In today’s digest, Albany passes a budget, check your mailbox for checks, and a spotlight on IBM’s Emily Fontaine. 💡
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Better late than never: Albany finally wrapped up its $268.5 billion state budget nearly two months late, complete with record investment in education and new legislation addressing public safety. (City & State)
The budget also focuses on affordability, from reducing insurance rates for drivers, to lowering utility costs and making it easier to build more housing.
Notably absent from the budget: The proposal to “decouple” New York from the federal Qualified Small Business Stock exclusion. 💪
Read Tech:NYC’s statement on the budget here.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani has launched a new “Commission on Government Efficiency” — or COGE — aimed at modernizing City Hall, cutting bureaucratic slowdowns, and speeding up everything from housing projects to childcare programs. 🏛️ (CBS New York)
The commission will review the city charter, hold public hearings across the five boroughs, and propose changes designed to make city agencies move faster and operate more efficiently.
Tech:NYC’s two cents: Technology can and will have a major role to play in this work. Smart civic tech helps our city government deliver at the speed and scale New Yorkers deserve, and we’re looking forward to seeing the real results this process can deliver across the five boroughs. More here.
Check your mailbox: This fall, more than 8 million New Yorkers are set to receive state rebate checks of up to $200 to help offset rising utility bills under the newly passed state budget. 💸 (Gothamist)
The checks will be mailed automatically, with larger rebates going to lower-income households and most eligible New Yorkers not needing to apply.
See if you qualify by taking this short quiz.
In other reading:
Where to see Manhattanhenge tonight and tomorrow (NYC Parks)
Dave & Buster’s is giving away free tickets to the 2026 World Cup if you can win this game (People)
Vote for your favorite 2-K jingle (NYC Mayor’s Office)
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VC Spotlight: Emily Fontaine
Consider Emily Fontaine bullish on the New York tech scene. 🗽
As the Global Head of Venture Capital at IBM, Emily has seen her fair share of tech companies choosing to build in New York.
“We’re seeing an incredible concentration of startups, talent, and cutting-edge technology emerging right here — not just on the West Coast — making New York one of the most dynamic places to build and scale,” she told us.
For this month’s VC Spotlight, we caught up with Emily to discuss her career, the corporate venture capital industry, the NYC tech scene, and much more.
You can hear directly from Emily during New York Tech Week on June 4 as she speaks on a panel with Tech:NYC’s Julie Samuels, Fizz’s Teddy Solomon, Comcast Ventures’ Allison Goldberg, and the New York Post’s Will Zimmerman about the future of tech and talent in NYC.
Here’s a preview of what Emily told us:
🧑💻 On the advantages of building in NYC:
“New York City offers a unique advantage: you’re surrounded by real customers every day. That proximity allows founders to engage early, iterate quickly, and build with real-world feedback from day one.”
🔮 On her bullish case for New York’s tech sector:
“Over the next decade, the narrative will geographically expand beyond Silicon Valley to a more balanced view where New York is equally central — especially for founders focused on real-world deployment, not just experimentation.”
“With its density of talent, capital, and direct access to global enterprises, NYC is one of the best places to build durable, category-defining companies.”
🤔 On the most common mistake she sees founders make when pitching investors:
“Leaning into technical detail before fully grounding the story — what they’re solving, for whom, and the outcome it drives. The strongest pitches balance technical depth with industry insight, bringing it to life through clear use cases and why it matters in practice, not just how it works.”
🤩 On recent investments she’s excited about:
“One I’m particularly excited about is Atolio, which is enabling secure, AI-powered enterprise search with strong early momentum. And I’d be remiss not to mention Reality Defender — an NYC favorite where we’re deepening our partnership to bring critical deepfake detection capabilities to clients.”
🍕 And, of course, on the best slice in the city:
“Bleecker Street Pizza. When it’s that good, it’s just that good. And who doesn’t love a classic that folds exactly how a New York slice should?”
In other reading:
Empire AI is already making rapid progress in drug discovery (City & State)
Can New York City provide affordable internet for all? (amNY)
The new career odyssey waiting for today’s college grads (Wall Street Journal)
Capchase, an NYC-based B2B financing startup, raised $26 million in equity funding. 01 Advisors led, joined by Caffeinated Capital, Thomvest Ventures, Scifi VC, Bling Capital, and Invesco. It also secured a $174 million credit facility.
Daloopa, an NYC-based provider of source-linked financial data for investment firms, raised $47 million in Series C funding. Brighton Park Capital led the round, joined by Squarepoint Capital, Touring Capital, and Nexus Venture Partners.
Solstice, an NYC-based AI-native marketing agency for pharma brands, raised $21 million in Series A funding. Transformation Capital led the round and was joined by Twelve Below, Virtue Ventures, and others.
Waypoint Bio, an NYC-based cell therapy biotech, raised $20 million in Series A funding. Amplify Partners led the round, joined by General Catalyst, Time BioVentures, Lux Capital, and Hummingbird Ventures.
Featured New York Tech Week events:
⭐ June 1-7: New York Tech Week, featuring 1,500+ tech events throughout the city. Get Tech:NYC’s curated Guide to NY Tech Week here in grid view (or list view here).
⭐ June 2: J.P. Morgan Payments x Tech:NYC Media Breakfast, bringing together leading fintech journalists and tech comms pros to explore how finance innovation is transforming industries. Register here.
⭐June 3: An Insider Look at Empire AI, a peek behind the $500 million consortium of leading universities building world-class supercomputing for the public interest. Register here
⭐ June 3: Axios AI+ NY Summit, a half-day event convening top leaders across tech, finance, media, health care, and beyond to explore what’s next for artificial intelligence in conversations live from the Big Apple. Register here.
⭐ June 4: Tech:NYC’s Decoded Futures Build Day, bringing together nonprofit leaders and technologists to explore practical ways to use AI to build organizational capacity and scale impact. Register here.
⭐ June 4: Edelman & Tech:NYC Media & Comms Happy Hour, rooftop cocktails and a panel on how new media is reshaping the tech landscape. Register here.
⭐ June 4: The Future of Tech & Talent in NYC: A New Hub for Startups with IBM, exploring how NYC is attracting tech, talent, and growing the startup ecosystem. Register here.
⭐ June 4: Economic Justice + Startups: A Conversation with Deputy Mayor Julie Su + Impact-Driven Demos, a discussion between the Deputy Mayor and startup founders working to solve hard problems for everyday New Yorkers in small business, housing, healthcare, childcare, workforce development, government services, and more. Register here.
Other great events:
May 29: Tech Happy Hour by Startup Grind, a way to connect with the NYC tech and startup community to discover shared interests, explore areas for collaboration, and find your next co-founder or key hire. Register here.
June 1: Batter Up NYC, for founders and investors looking to get feedback on their pitches or founders just looking to learn from other founders. Register here.
June 2: AI on Main Street: How Chinatown's Small Businesses Are Using AI, where you can hear from the owners of Welcome to Chinatown about what they’ve been doing, talk with the technologists who worked with them, and grab some food and drinks. Register here.
June 3: Founders & Investors Happy Hour, a curated evening at Haven HQ for early stage founders and active investors. Register here.
June 3: Grind & Grow: A Cacao Ceremony for Founders & Investors, an intimate cacao ceremony for Seed to Series B founders and Partner-level VCs. Register here.
June 3: Anthropic Founder Salon: Inside the AI-Native Era, an exclusive, curated gathering brings together founders and leaders from across the AI ecosystem for a conversation on how advancements in model capabilities are rapidly reshaping the startup ecosystem. Register here.
June 4: Founder Run Club, a conversation-pace run along the Hudson with a group of founders. Register here.
June 4: Pancakes* with PENSA, a breakfast and networking gathering of hardware startup leaders. Register here.
June 4: NYTW Conversations: Crafting Community, a focused, intimate conversation with Jaclyn Johnson, Founder of Create & Cultivate about what it takes to build a community that lasts. Register here with promo code TECHNYC for a discounted pass.
June 9: Mission-Ready Identity: The New Standard of Defense in the AI Era, an executive summit from CLEAR bringing together security, fraud, operations, and business leaders from across industries to reframe identity from a static “system of record” to mission-ready infrastructure. Register here.
June 9-10: DeveloperWeek New York, bringing together thousands of software engineers, architects, dev team leads, and product builders, for an event that spans every major area of software development: from AI and cloud to frameworks, DevOps, APIs, and emerging tech. Register here for a discounted pass for Digest readers.
June 16: Business Incubator Association of New York State’s 2026 Annual Conference, featuring high-impact panels with communities building across New York. Register here with promo code TECHNYC for a discounted pass.
June 18: [untitled] Series // Craft and Code, a fireside with a few engineers who care about design talking honestly about craft, taste, and how they actually work. Register here.
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