Thursday, September 4, 2025

September 04, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 10 minutes

Thursday, September 4, 2025 

In today’s digest, student phones are put away, Brooklyn books say hey, and NYC startups that raised a Series A. 🅰️ 

  • But first: Join Tech:NYC, Pensar, and The Refinery at Domino at our next NYC AI Demos event on Sept. 18, featuring live demos from OpenAI, Priceline, Daydream, Tabs, Lumos, Northflank, and AngelList. Register here.

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  • As thousands of students head back to NYC public schools today, the smartphone ban is officially enacted, as phones will be stored in pouches or lockers at the start of the day and picked up when school lets out. 📵 (New York Times)

  • It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a… new Acela train! Amtrak has rolled out its next-gen Acela trains at Moynihan Train Hall. The new trains can reach speeds of 160 mph (10 mph faster than the current fleet), have 27% more seating capacity, wider seats with more legroom, and much more. 🚄 (Fox New York)

  • The Brooklyn Book Festival returns for its 20th year this month, as the week-long event features more than 300 authors and 250 publishers for panels, signings, readings, and more. 📚 (Secret NYC)

    • The festival runs September 14–22.

    • Check out more info on the festival here. 

In other reading:

  • New York lunch is back — martinis and all (Eater NY)

  • These three Brooklyn areas will be next year’s hottest neighborhoods, per a new city planning report (TimeOut New York)

  • Banking platform Rho expands to 13K SF at 100 Crosby Street (Commercial Observer)

NYC’s startup engine isn’t slowing down. 🚀 

This month’s “Series A: A Series” adds 16 new companies that just hit the milestone, bringing our summer total to more than 60. 

  • What’s exciting about this August cohort is how it highlights NYC’s breadth — from applied AI and fintech to health tech and even firefighting gear.

Let’s take a look at the trends from this month:

🤖 Applied AI, NYC’s sweet spot:

  • Startups like Tavily (LLM-native search), Lorikeet (AI for customer support), and Sola (automating workflows with AI agents) are building the kinds of infrastructure that make AI usable across industries. 

  • InstaLILY AI and Protege go deeper into enterprise and training data — proof that NYC founders are less about hype and more about workflow transformation.

💸 Fintech and insurtech, still resilient: B2B fintech in NYC keeps attracting capital. 

  • Casap (fraud/dispute automation) and Basic Capital (retirement investing infrastructure) show how the city’s 4,000 fintech startups continue to evolve.

🏥 Healthtech with impact:

  • NYC’s healthcare ecosystem is fertile ground, and companies like Isaac Health (virtual dementia and brain health) and Wisdom (billing for dental practices) are tackling real gaps.

🌱 Niche and unexpected plays: A couple of August raises remind us that NYC doesn’t just chase hot trends. 

  • Garage is creating a marketplace for pre-owned emergency equipment and vehicles, while Stavtar Solutions raised big to scale pragmatic IT platforms. 

  • And yes, consumer edge bets live on — Novig is taking on the sports betting market.

All told, these companies are hiring for nearly 100 (!) NYC-based jobs right now, ranging from software engineers to chiefs of staff to marketing analysts. 

🗽 Why it matters: These raises are signs of NYC doubling down on applied AI, fintech infrastructure, and healthcare, AKA the exact mix of industries that keeps our ecosystem diverse and resilient.

  • Explore the full August list, see who’s hiring, and zoom in on our map of the NYC Series A companies here.

Did we miss your Series A raise? Let us know — we want to spotlight every NYC founder turning vision into venture.

In other reading:

  • Fintech startup Ramp hits $1 billion in annualized revenue after notching $22.5 billion valuation (Fortune)

  • The best job interview questions, according to executives (Quartz)

  • AI skills add nearly $18,000 a year to salaries — and not just in tech (CNBC)

  • ModernFi, an NYC-based provider of deposit-management infrastructure for community and regional banks and credit unions, raised $30 million in Series B funding. Canapi Ventures led, joined by a16z, Curql, Remarkable Ventures, and Intercontinental Exchange.

  • September 8: House of Scale, a day ​designed to connect diverse founders with traction (early stage to series B) with active investors, industry experts, and proven entrepreneurs. Register here.

  • September 8: Make It in Brooklyn Meetup: Design + Technology Panel, a discussion on how design-driven innovation is shaping the future of product development, and how products are conceived, prototyped, and launched. Register here.

  • September 9-10: New York Venture Summit, featuring 220+ leading VCs speaking on moderated panels and judging startup pitches, and 180+ innovators across AI, cleantech, fintech, medtech, life sciences, and more. Register with promo code early200 for $200 off a ticket here. 

  • September 10: New York Developer & Lawmaker Roundtable, a discussion on key policy issues impacting app development today,  including data privacy, artificial intelligence, online age verification, and more. Register here.

  • September 10: NYC Summit, Primary’s annual invite-only conference, bringing together 2,000 top founders, VCs, and LPs. This year’s speakers include Julie Samuels (Tech:NYC), Larry Fitzgerald (Arizona Cardinals), David Karp (Tumblr), Toyin Ajayi (Cityblock Health), Lina Khan (FTC), Kareem Amin (Clay), and more. Apply to attend here.

  • September 11: Expanding the Tech Corridor: U.S.–Europe Innovation, a tech networking event connecting U.S. innovators with Europe's top innovation region, Baden-Württemberg. Register here.

  • September 11-12: AI, Impact, Investing, & Family Office Summit, a curated circle of family offices, other direct investors, institutional investors, and AI founders for a two-day deal making summit. Register here.

  • September 17: Travel Tech's NYC Start-Up Founder Happy Hour, a chance to meet fellow founders and innovators, and plug into the NYC travel tech community. Register here.

  • September 18: NYC AI Demos, featuring live demos from OpenAI, Priceline, Daydream, Tabs, Lumos, Northflank, and AngelList. Register here.

  • September 18: Brderless’ September Founder Breakfast, a private breakfast for a curated group of early-stage founders, especially those who are scaling and looking for international hiring. Register here.

  • September 18-20: The Atlantic Festival relocates to NYC with its screenings, book talks, and more with influential thinkers including Scott Galloway, Keri Russell, Mark Cuban, H.R. McMaster, Robert Downey Jr., Richard Ayoade, David Letterman, Dr. Becky Kennedy, Tom Hanks, and others. Register with promo code TECHNYC20 for 20% off one-day passes here.

  • September 19: Vibe Coding for VCs, ​a crash course for venture investors to move from talking about AI to building with it. Register here.

  • September 23: Deep Tech Forum + Startup Showcase in NYC, bringing together deep tech startups from across the globe alongside corporate innovation leaders, investors, and ecosystem partners. Register with promo code TECHNYC for a 20% discount here.

  • September 25: 11th Annual Bloomberg-Columbia Machine Learning in Finance Conference 2025, with talks by international practitioners and academics on AI applications in finance including asset pricing models, neural SDEs, market sentiment analysis, and fairness in financial ML. Register for early rates here.

  • October 7: Information Security Summit, for public sector leaders, cybersecurity pros, and tech experts committed to safeguarding New York’s state and local government operations. Register with promo code TECHNYC for a 25% discount here.

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