Tuesday, March 17, 2026
In today’s digest, slower streets, a park redesign decades in the making, and the fastest moving private companies, ranked. 🥇
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Attention city drivers: NYC is lowering speed limits in school zones citywide as part of a broader push to reduce traffic deaths. 🚸 (NBC New York)
The city plans to bring limits down to 15 mph at ~2,300 school zones by 2030, with 800 speed reductions happening this year alone.
The push is backed by safety data: pedestrians hit at 25 mph are more than three times as likely to be seriously injured as at 15 mph.
Hold your nose for this one: After conducting several stakeouts in high-poop neighborhoods, sanitation officials are admitting it’s basically impossible to catch people who don’t pick up after their dogs — because enforcement requires literally catching offenders in the act. 🐶 (The CITY)
Complaints about dog waste have skyrocketed recently, with sanitation officials handing out nearly 9,000 dirty sidewalk fines in an effort to encourage New Yorkers to pick up the mess — placing the duty 😉 to clean on property owners rather than on dog owner culprits.
After multiple stakeouts, the city issued just two summonses in 2025 for failure to scoop poop (the official name of the crime), meaning the vast majority of offenders are getting away with it.
And now open your nose for this one: Prospect Park’s Rose Garden is getting a long-awaited redesign (but still no roses). 🌿 (New York Times)
The $37.5 million project will turn the long-neglected area into a pollinator garden with flowers meant to attract flocks of migrating birds.
The plans also call for a nature-based play space for kids, as well as a new pavilion and a picnic lawn, all scheduled to finish in 2027.
➕ One more thing: To stay ahead, New York state leaders must commit to sustained, long-term investment in university-based research and the researchers behind emerging fields like AI, writes Tech:NYC President and CEO Julie Samuels in Crain’s New York Business. More here.
In other reading:
Weekend ‘blitz’ fills more than 7,000 potholes in NYC (PIX 11)
A new proposed law may force New Yorkers to turn their outdoor lights off by 11pm nightly (Time Out New York)
Inside the beloved NYC Irish neighborhood that’s had its cover blown on social media (New York Post)
The Hottest Startups Right Now (And Why NYC Is Showing Up Everywhere)
A new ranking from Green Flag Digital looks beyond funding to measure which private tech companies are combining capital, web traffic, and brand search to track industry buzz.
In other words, this ranking measures who’s converting funding into usage and brand traction. In no surprise to us, NYC startups are doing both. 💪
Here’s what stands out: 👇
🤖 AI is still dominating everything:
AI companies make up 69 of the top 100 — and 8 of the top 10 — companies, showing just how concentrated investor and user attention is right now.
💰 Funding is huge — and not the full story: The ranking gives significant weight to funding, of course, but also measures web traffic and branded search, giving a 360 view of which companies are resonating with users and building visibility.
🥊 NYC is a real heavyweight:
By this measure, the NYC metro now has five of the top 10 companies — tied for tops in the nation. That’s not including OpenAI and Anthropic (both Tech:NYC members), which have a large presence in Gotham.
NYC just had its strongest February on record with $2.53 billion raised, up 181% year-over-year.
NYC-based names in the top 10 include Whop (3), Grow Therapy (5), Polymarket (8), Eight Sleep (9), and ElevenLabs (10 and also a Tech:NYC member).
🚀 Fresh capital still drives buzz:
218 companies raised new funding in just the last 31 days, showing how active the market remains.
Speaking of funding…
🚨🚨 Huge announcement for Digest readers: Tech:NYC is excited to officially launch the NYC Funding Tracker, putting all of the latest funding info at your fingertips — so you can keep tabs on who’s building, scaling, and hiring across the ecosystem.
We track publicly announced NYC-based startup raises in the Digest daily.
We compiled all the announcements from the last year into a searchable, sortable website.
The list is organized by subsector, round, investor, and amount, so readers can quickly spot which corners of the market are heating up, which firms are most active, and what kinds of companies are getting funded (and likely hiring).
We also keep a running tally of total deals tracked and total capital raised, giving readers an easy way to gauge the pace and scale of startup activity in New York over time.
In other reading:
Future AI chips could be built on glass (MIT Technology Review)
Finance bros to tech bros: Don’t mess with my Bloomberg Terminal (Wall Street Journal)
The world’s most valuable company just sent another signal that AI agents are going to be everywhere (CNN Business)
Welcome to our weekly jobs section, where we spotlight a selection of the NYC tech jobs from Tech:NYC’s Jobs Board — all recently posted. 🔥
Today, we’re highlighting a few finance-focused roles:
Product Manager | Financial Intelligence — Ramp ($170k-325k / year + equity): You’ll be a driving force behind the vision, strategy, and roadmap for Ramp’s next generation of financial insight and analytics products. Apply here.
Strategic Finance — Runway ($150k-200k / year): You’ll own the models, narratives, and analyses that inform the most important choices the business makes: how to allocate capital, where to grow, and what metrics matters. Apply here.
Head of Finance — Paces ($180k-250k / year + equity): You’ll run the core finance function (planning, reporting, controls) while bringing project development finance context to help Paces build and sell software that actually matches how renewable projects get developed and financed. Apply here.
Fuse, an NYC-based loan origination system startup, raised $25 million in Series A funding from Footwork, Primary Venture Partners, NextView Ventures, and Commerce Ventures.
Surf AI, an NYC-based agentic operations platform for security teams, raised $57 million in funding. Accel led the round and was joined by existing investors Cyberstarts and Boldstart Ventures.
Featured events:
⭐ March 19: City & State’s Digital New York Summit, for New York’s technology and information leaders from government and industry to gather for candid discussions and thought-provoking presentations on innovative ideas that are making everyday life for all New Yorkers more livable, safer, and more convenient. Register here with promo code TECHNYC for 25% off.
⭐ March 26: Tech:NYC’s Decoded Futures Demo Day, a showcase of creativity, collaboration, and innovation, featuring nonprofit leaders who have been exploring, over our 8-week program, how AI can scale the work and impact of the social sector. Register here.
⭐ March 31: Runway AI Summit, bringing together industry leaders across media, technology, consumer brands, robotics, and more to explore how AI is reshaping how work gets done — and what comes next for enterprise. Register here with promo code TECHNYC50 for 50% off.
⭐ April 6-9: HumanX’s conference for AI leaders in San Francisco, uniting 6,500+ leaders, builders, and investors driving real transformation. Discover cutting-edge innovations and accelerate your impact through networking opportunities. Register here with promo code HX26P_TECHNYC to get $$$ off your pass.
Other great events:
March 19: Human by Design: The Empathy Edge in an AI World, for women and allies who build — PMs, founders, designers, marketers, and engineers — to discuss how empathy, judgment, and collaborative AI tools can help you grow influence and deliver meaningful impact. Register here.
March 19: Own the Room: How to Speak and Present Effectively in Meeting, an interactive workshop designed for women who want to strengthen their voice at work. Register here.
March 20: Keeping It Urban Summit, featuring 10+ powerhouse panelists on media interfaces, robotics, and civic innovation, 5+ early-stage startups, and creative tech artist talks. Register here.
March 20: NYC Coffee Club, for founders and investors focused on the early-stage (pre-Series A) B2B and AI landscape. Register here.
March 21: Anti-Slopathon, a hackathon where participants use AI to build tools, games, features, and experiences, but show how they’ve listened to their user and applied taste and design judgment. Register here.
March 25: Speed Pitch, where every founder meets with three matched investors in one-on-one 8-minute sessions. Register here with promo code TECHNYC20 for 20% off.
March 25: FinTech Running Club ft. Rain, a casual run that’s open to everyone, from first-timers to seasoned runners. Register here.
March 26: How The Nation’s Top Law Enforcement Organizations Are Navigating Disruption, a discussion with leaders of the nation’s top organizations representing state Attorneys General on how they’re equipping their members and offices with the resources needed to uphold law and order during times of disorder. Register here.
March 26: Founder Dinner, an intimate evening with a highly curated group of Series A+ founders that are scaling. Register here.
March 26: American Fintech Council’s inaugural Marketing and Communications Cocktails & Conversations, hosted in collaboration with Tech:NYC, CLYDE, and Current. Register here.
March 26: Make It in Brooklyn Ag Tech Pitch Contest, bringing together local Ag Tech startups, early-stage founders, seasoned investors, and industry leaders to spotlight solutions that will define agriculture’s next chapter. Register here.
March 27: Free Social Coworking Session at The Yard (Gowanus), a chance to work in a focused but social environment with other remote workers. Register here.
March 31: Building at the Frontier, a panel with the builders and operators pushing deep tech forward, featuring Fauna Robotics’ Rob Cochran and Radical AI’s Joseph Krause. Moderated by Eric Newcomer. Register here.
April 2: Building the American Century, part of Deep Tech Week, featuring fireside chats with David Ulevitch, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz and co-leader of the American Dynamism practice, alongside key members of the team. Moderated by Hyperstition Incorporated’s Andrew Cote. Register here.
April 14: Govtech Happy Hour, for govtech founders and operators, civil servants past and present, and policy enthusiasts. Register here.
April 14: April Nexus Cocktail Mixer, an executive mixer designed for leaders driving operations, technology, and growth at top brands and retailers. Register here.
April 16: Construction Robotics Summit: From Dirt to Data, bringing together the builders, technologists, and decision-makers advancing robotics across the built environment. Register here for early-bird pricing before March 31.
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