Thursday, May 7, 2026
In today’s digest, Albany inches closer to a final budget, NYC makes room for more bikes, and seed funding is flowing. 🚲
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Albany is nearing a handshake deal on a very late, very large $268 billion state budget, with a new tax on multimillion-dollar second homes in NYC aimed at helping close the city’s budget gap. 💰 (New York Times)
The pied-à-terre tax is expected to raise $500 million a year, though state leaders have not yet released details on which homes will qualify or what rates will apply.
The deal also includes expanded childcare funding and immigration-related measures, including a ban on masked ICE agents and limits on ICE cooperation by local law enforcement.
Albany is also moving closer to requiring NYC’s most ticket-happy drivers to install speed-limiting devices, with the state budget deal expected to include a “super speeder” program for vehicles that rack up 16 or more speed-camera tickets in a year. 🚗 (Gothamist)
The devices use GPS to cap a car’s speed based on the local limit, and vehicle owners would have to cover the roughly $150 installation cost plus a $4-a-day subscription.
Officials pushed to keep penalties civil instead of criminal, meaning noncompliant vehicle owners could face escalating fines and eventually lose their registration.
Small-apartment cyclists, rejoice: NYC Department of Transportation plans to install 500 secure bike parking locations across the five boroughs, giving New Yorkers a place to stash standard bikes, e-bikes, cargo bikes, and adaptive bikes without hauling them upstairs. 🚲 (amNY)
The curb-lane parking hubs will roll out later this year through a membership model, with annual, hourly, and discounted options still to be announced.
DOT also launched a feedback portal where New Yorkers can suggest parking locations, and the 2026 NYC Bike Map is getting an interactive online upgrade.
In other reading:
The essential ice cream shops in NYC, mapped (Eater)
The High Line is hosting its first-ever plant sale (Time Out New York)
What can a congressional rep actually do for you? A guide for NYC voters (The CITY)
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New York Is Holding Its Ground in the Seed Funding Boom
Seed funding is flowin’, though the money is not spreading evenly. New Crunchbase data shows New York remains the country’s clear No. 2 seed hub, and its share has stayed steady even as the rest of the market gets more concentrated.
Let’s take a deeper look:
🗽 New York is still the strong No. 2: New York captured around 17% of U.S. seed funding dollars in 2025, holding onto its typical share.
That keeps NYC well ahead of Greater Los Angeles and Greater Boston, which each accounted for about 5% of U.S. seed funding dollars.
New York has held steady at around 16% of seed deals since 2018, showing that the city’s early-stage startup pipeline remains durable.
💪 Stability is a strength: The Bay Area’s share of seed dollars jumped sharply, but New York’s consistency matters in a more selective market.
For founders and investors, that suggests NYC has avoided the pullback hitting other ecosystems.
It also reinforces New York’s role as one of the country’s most important startup hubs, especially across sectors where the city already shines: fintech, enterprise software, healthtech, media, climate and AI.
The real squeeze is outside the top hubs: Startups outside the top four metros (NY, SF, LA, Boston) captured just 28% of U.S. seed funding dollars in 2025, the lowest share on record.
That means the broader market is becoming more concentrated around a few major ecosystems.
Even so, startup formation remains widely distributed: Two-thirds of U.S. seed-stage startups in 2025 were based outside the Bay Area.
📏 Mega-rounds are skewing the picture: Strip out seed rounds of $10 million or more, and the top four markets account for about 61% of seed funding, much closer to historical norms.
Median seed round sizes were actually higher in New York, Boston, and Los Angeles than in the Bay Area.
In other words: San Francisco is indeed garnering bigger checks, but New York founders are still raising competitive seed rounds.
🚀 TL;DR: Seed funding is getting more concentrated, more competitive, and more AI-driven.
New York’s position remains solid: The city remains the No. 2 seed market in the country, its deal share is steady, and its sector diversity gives founders more ways to build.
In other reading:
AI is rewriting what investors should look for in early startup teams (Crunchbase)
The ChatGPT-ification of American business (Wall Street Journal)
AI is starting to build itself (Axios)
InstaSwitch, an NYC-based provider of bank account activation infrastructure, raised a $4.7 million seed led by Chicago Ventures.
Kalshi, an NYC-based predictions marketplace, raised $1 billion in Series F funding at a $22 billion valuation. Coatue led, joined by a16z, Sequoia Capital, IVP, Paradigm, Morgan Stanley, and ARK Invest.
Nova Intelligence, an NYC-based AI platform for SAP development and migration, raised $31 million. Chemistry led, joined by Accel, Conviction, and SAP.io.
Featured event:
⭐ May 12: Resilience Meetup Presented by AWS & Antithesis, a half-day conversation featuring senior engineers and tech leaders discussing resilience engineering and how to bring reliability and correctness to agentic engineering. *Space is limited*. Register here.
Other great events:
May 8: Pitch and Run Friday, where founders can connect with Angels and VCs without the pressure of a pitch meeting. Register here.
May 12: NYC Tech Founders Public Speaking Practice Sessions, where you can expect reps in front of a live audience, and a sharper, clearer version of your pitch by the end of the night. Register here.
May 13: Defending Your Budget, focusing on bridging the gap between marketing investment and board-level expectations, equipping you to drive and communicate performance in a way that builds clarity, confidence, and alignment. Register here.
May 13: Founders & Funders: NYC VC Reverse Pitch, an evening of networking and a chance to hear VCs pitch on their investment theses, target industries, check sizes, key differentiators, portfolios, and what they look for in founders. Register here.
May 14: NYC Women in Tech: Cafe Meetup, to connect with women and non-binary folks in tech who meet you where you are. Register here.
May 14: Cornell Tech’s annual Startup Awards, bringing together the most promising student ventures for an evening of pitches, research, and community. Register here.
May 14: Brderless Founder Breakfast, a private founder breakfast for a curated group of Seed & Series A founders. Register here.
May 18-20: Sports Business Journal Tech Week, bringing together sports tech leaders to network, drive innovation, and discuss the trends impacting the sector. Register here with promo code LG-TECHNYC-2025 to get 15% off your pass.
May 19: Commerce Leaders Mixer at The Lead Summit, a curated evening of networking with senior retail and brand leaders across ecommerce, marketing, and digital. Register here.
May 20: Brits in Tech — Rooftop Happy Hour, a no pressure, no agenda, informal night, supporting the British tech space in NYC. Register here.
May 21: Brderless Founder Dinner, a private founder dinner for a curated group of Series A+ founders. Register here.
May 21: The Lead Summit After Party, an exclusive evening of networking and conversation after the Lead Summit. Register here.
May 27: Cornell Tech Frontiers of AI Summit, bringing together academia, industry, and the public sector to explore the foundational perspectives that are shaping the future of AI. Register here.
May 28: Niural AI Summit, a pre-NY Tech Week summit bringing together CFOs, finance leaders, HR executives, founders, and investors shaping the future of AI-native finance and people operations. Register here for a discounted rate for Tech:NYC Digest readers.
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