Wednesday, January 21, 2026
In today’s digest, New York puts its responsible AI money where its mouth is, the state of fintech, and for real — get your REAL ID. Really. 🪪
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New York 🤝 responsible AI. A record-breaking $30 million philanthropic gift will help launch the first independent AI research center at a public university, based at Binghamton University. 🤖 (WKTV)
The Center for AI Responsibility and Research is backed by donors led by Bloomberg LP co-founder Tom Secunda, plus a $25 million research capital investment from SUNY.
The Center will focus on AI safety, security, and transparency, and will work with the Empire AI Consortium to help set national standards.
TSA PSA: Starting February 1, travelers who reach airport security without a REAL ID or passport will need to pay a new $45 TSA fee and complete an online identity verification process before they’re allowed to fly. ✈️ (Secret NYC)
Not sure if you already have a REAL ID? New Yorkers can check their current ID for a gold or black star in the upper right-hand corner.
To avoid the fee and get a REAL ID, you’ll have to visit the DMV.
In today’s least surprising news, New York restaurants are all over the James Beard Award semifinalists. How many of these award nominees have you hit? 🧑🍳 (Eater)
Nominations include Sunny Lee (Sunn’s, Chinatown) and Rasheeda Purdie (Ramen by Ra, East Village) for Emerging Chef, and NYC Italian heavyweights The Four Horsemen (Williamsburg) and Via Carota (West Village) for the Outstanding Restaurant category.
In other reading:
How do I convince my super to compost? (Curbed)
Channing Tatum to bring ‘Magic Mike Live’ to NYC this fall (New York Theatre Guide)
Lili Taylor, Keith McNally, and Andrew Ross Sorkin are among Gotham Book Prize finalists (Associated Press)
The State of Fintech 2026: Fewer Deals, Bigger Bets
PitchBook’s latest report on the state of fintech shows a market that’s pulling back — not retreating though — as capital concentrates. But the Big Apple continues to attract big bets. 🍎
Here’s what you need to know:
🌍 Globally, fintech funding is “back to normal.”
Investors put a similar amount of money into fintech in 2025 as they did before the pandemic, with $41.3 billion raised across 2,044 deals.
Most of it is going to B2B companies, which captured 59% of all deal value.
Most VC deal value in 2025 originated in Q4.
🏁 Exits are happening again.
VC exit value rose 282.4% last year to $67 billion.
Where’s the money’s going? Stage matters, as does the fintech segment.
Fintech investment is increasingly skewing toward later-stage companies, as investors prioritize proven revenue and clearer paths to scale over early experimentation.
Wealthtech, credit & banking, CFO stack, and payment companies led in VC deal value.
🤖 AI fintechs are the favorites.
In the U.S., almost half of fintech venture funding is going to companies that use AI in a meaningful way.
AI-enabled fintech startups are also raising new rounds the fastest.
Now let’s look at NYC: Local fintech funding spiked in 2021, dropped in 2023, and has climbed back to about $7 billion in 2024 and $10 billion in 2025, according to PitchBook data.
Early 2026 already shows a few sizable NYC deals on the board, with NYC-based fintech companies having raised $35 million across eight deals this year.
👉 The takeaway: Together, the numbers point to a fintech market that’s smaller in volume but bigger in conviction, with more capital flowing to AI-driven, later-stage, revenue-proven companies.
In that environment, NYC’s mix of financial institutions, regulators, and enterprise customers keeps the financial capital at the center of where those larger, more selective fintech bets get made.
In other reading:
CEOs and workers see AI very differently (Wall Street Journal)
With one word, Taylor Swift just explained how to be successful in work and life (Fast Company)
Burritos from heaven: Are drones the future of delivery? (The Verge)
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. 🔥
In light of our “Today in Tech” section above, this week we’re spotlighting fintech roles! Here are three roles (all posted this week) from NYC fintech companies:
Enterprise Product Marketing Manager — Ramp ($141,920-195,140 / year + equity): You’ll join a growing Enterprise Product Marketing team and play a key role in shaping Ramp’s Enterprise GTM strategy. Apply here.
Enterprise Partnerships, Credit Risk, Vice President — Goldman Sachs ($115k-270k / year): You’ll build new and optimize existing customer management strategies to improve customer level profitability. Apply here.
Staff Software Engineer, Finplat, Ledgering — Block ($263,600-395,400 / year): You'll get to drive forward the future of ledgering for Cash App, working as part of an autonomous engineering team to solve high impact problems. Apply here.
Cosmos, an NYC-based image collection and discovery platform, raised $15 million in Series A funding. Shine Capital led the round and was joined by Matrix and others.
Formulary, an NYC-based provider of private fund manager software, raised $4.6 million in seed funding led by Khosla Ventures, with Human Ventures participating.
Justice Through Code is recruiting tech mentors to support justice-impacted Fellows breaking into the AI economy. Commitment is ~1-2 hours/month virtually from February-June 2026. Apply here.
The PantryLink Challenge is calling on innovators and technologists to reimagine emergency food assistance in NYC. The NYC Department of Social Services and the Mayor’s Office of Food Policy is seeking tech-enabled solutions to strengthen the city’s emergency food network and reach thousands of households. Learn more here and submit your proposal by January 26 here.
New York City Economic Development Corporation has launched a Request for Applications for the NYC Catalyst Fund II, an investment fund aiming to create social and environmental impact, fuel economic growth and development in New York City, and generate income for NYCEDC. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis across several submission deadlines, beginning on January 30 here.
The South Park Commons Founder Fellowship, helping teams that aim to build frontier technology companies start with targeted support and capital. Apply by February 1 here.
Applications are now open for the eighth annual Transit Tech Lab, an accelerated innovation program founded by the Partnership Fund for New York City and the MTA to improve public transit in the NY metro area. This year’s Lab is seeking tech companies with solutions that can help transit agencies advance infrastructure systems or modernize data and operational workflows. Apply here by February 27 and attend an info session on February 5.
HubSpot’s How You Hustle, where you and your business could be featured and receive free press exposure to their 1.5 million subscribers. Apply here.
Company Ventures’ Grand Central Tech Residency’s spring 2026 cohort, a 12-month residency program for founders and teams looking to build in-person in NYC. Apply here.
Union Square Ventures’ “usvwork” — a casual coworking day once a month for founders and builders in NYC. Apply here.
Zero Irving — the Union Square tech hub home to Civic Hall — is relaunching its Workforce Development Project Fund, which awards $200,000 annually for programs that expand tech access and economic mobility for underrepresented New Yorkers, especially those in Manhattan Community District 3 (Lower East Side, East Village, Chinatown). Submit your proposal here.
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