- Tech:NYC Digest
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- Tuesday, August 19, 2025
Tuesday, August 19, 2025
Tuesday, August 19, 2025
In today’s digest, Downtown Brooklyn housing soars, happy birthday NYC, and the return of in-person interviews. 💼
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New York’s hottest club is… Downtown Brooklyn! At least when it comes to housing real estate. The neighborhood is on track for its largest year for housing development as its transportation and cultural options appeal to developers. (Crain’s New York)
During the first half of the year, over 3,700 units were completed, and 1,183 are set to finish before 2026.
That first half number already breaks the previous record high of 2,925 units in all of 2022. 🏘️
Wake up, babe — the “25 Best Restaurants In NYC” list just dropped. 🍽️ The Infatuation just released its list of the highest-rated restaurants in New York City, including some fancy spots, casual locations, food trucks, diners, and more. (The Infatuation)
As New York turns 400, “Happy Birthday” isn’t the only song folks will be singing. On Sunday, Sept. 7, Broadway will host a free concert called “Founded By Broadway” in Times Square with hits from “Wicked” to “The Book of Mormon” and “& Juliet.” 🎶 (TimeOut New York)
More than 20 productions will send cast members to perform in the middle of Duffy Square.
➕ One more thing: An op-ed to read now. NYC should double down on innovative education and workforce training solutions to attract and cultivate the next generation of founders and entrepreneurs, writes Tech:NYC President & CEO Julie Samuels. (Crain’s New York)
In other reading:
NYC beaches will close as Hurricane Erin brings deadly rip currents (New York Times)
It’s the summer of the status melon (Grub Street)
Fintech, AI firms give Refinery at Domino sweet new lease on life (New York Post)
The days of interviewing in your pajamas may be coming to an end. 💼 In-person interviews are making a comeback as AI reshapes the hiring process.
What’s 🆕: More companies, including Google, Cisco, and McKinsey, have decided to bring back or add face-to-face meetings and interviews during the hiring process. (Wall Street Journal)
Recruitment firm Coda Search/Staffing in Dallas estimates that in-person interview requests among its clients have risen from 5% last year to 30% this year. 📈
In a survey of 3,000 job seekers by research and advisory group Gartner this year, 6% said they had participated in interview fraud, either posing as somebody else or having someone stand in for them.
Gartner predicts that by 2028, one in four job-candidate profiles worldwide will be fake.
The why: Going back to basics helps weed out those candidates who may be perfect on paper but may be using AI in a way that’s, let’s say, not encouraged. 🤔
Some candidates are using AI chatbots or Googling answers during their virtual interviews to make them seem more qualified for the job, while AI-generated frauds are growing, as advances have made it easier to create deepfake videos and audio.
But here’s the upside: AI is also of course transforming hiring for the better.
Employers are adopting AI-powered tools to sift through applications more fairly and efficiently, freeing up time for recruiters to focus on meaningful human interactions.
Candidates, too, are increasingly using AI to polish résumés, practice interview skills, apply to more jobs, and discover opportunities they might not have otherwise considered.
Bottom line: In-person interviews may be back, but so is a chance to make hiring more transparent, inclusive, and efficient. 🤝
P.S. Looking for your next tech job? Look no further. Check out our Jobs Board, featuring 3,100+ NYC tech jobs from 385+ tech companies.
In other reading:
ChemFinity, an NYC-based developer of wastewater filters for recovering critical minerals, raised $7 million in seed funding. Overture Ventures and At One Ventures led, joined by Closed Loop Ventures Group, Pace Ventures, WovenEarth Ventures, and Climate Capital.
Eight Sleep, an NYC-based developer of smart sleep products, has raised $100 million in Series D funding. Investors include HSG and insiders Valor Equity Partners, Founders Fund, and Y Combinator.
IVIX, an NYC-based AI-powered platform designed to help governments around the world combat financial crime at scale using LLMs, advanced graph analytics and publicly available data, raised $60 million in Series B funding. O.G. Venture Partners led the round and was joined by Insight Partners, Citi Ventures, Team8, Disruptive AI, Cardumen Capital, and Cerca.
Keychain, an NYC-based manufacturing platform for CPG companies, raised $30 million in Series B funding. Wellington Management led, joined by Box Group.
TensorZero, an NYC-based developer of open-source infrastructure for LLMs, raised $7.3 million in seed funding. FirstMark led, joined by Bessemer Venture Partners, Bedrock Capital, DRW, and Coalition.
August 26: Exiting Strong: Strategies and Wins Under $100MM, a chance to learn how to position your company for acquisition, different deal structures, and how to negotiate favorable terms while avoiding common pitfalls. Register here.
August 26: Brderless x Rho Founder Breakfast, for curated seed-stage founders (post raise) who are scaling or gearing up for Series A. Register here.
September 3-4: Go-To-Market: Building Distribution Engine that Scales, a two-day workshop for early-stage founders to master go-to-market strategy, build a scalable distribution engine, and get real feedback from top operators and founders. 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: NYC Summit, Primary’s annual invite-only conference, bringing together 2,000 top founders, VCs, and LPs. This year’s speakers include Larry Fitzgerald (Arizona Cardinals), David Karp (Tumblr), Toyin Ajayi (Cityblock Health), Lina Khan (FTC), Kareem Amin (Clay), and more. Apply to attend 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 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.
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