Wednesday, October 29, 2025

Nearly 300,000 New Yorkers have cast their vote in the mayoral general election during the first four days of early voting, already surpassing figures from 2021. Check out the borough by borough voting stats (spoiler: Brooklyn leads the way). 🗳️ (Patch) 

If the costumes don’t scare you, the street closures will: The annual New York City Village Halloween Parade returns Friday starting at 7pm. Here’s the route and list of roads that will be closed. 🎃 (CBS New York)

Halloween weather forecast: rain now, candy later. 🌧 A midweek storm will soak the city Thursday with up to two inches of rain and 40 mph gusts before clearing in time for trick-or-treaters. 🍫 (CBS New York)

Step inside the homes of these iconic artists around NYC (Gothamist) 

Cornell's new interactive map shows 'sobering' impact of federal cuts on New York state (Spectrum News 1)

The Chelsea insider guide: Post-gallery, pre-gimmick, always hungry (Observer)

Earlier this year, Ramp also turned Madison Square Garden into a 3D illusion where its minimalist logo floats in midair.

The animation was built to reflect Ramp’s ethos: making complex financial tools look sleek, simple, and effortless.

Behold — a billboard people actually stop to film, which means B2B marketing went B2C viral.

Ads along the Metro-North and social feeds directed people to call 1-833-I-MISS-NYC to hear the sounds of the city.

Many were promptly defaced with “AI trash” and “surveillance capitalism” graffiti — which founder Avi Schiffmann says was the point. 🤔

Our question: Was it a failure if nobody can stop talking about it?

Visitors lined up for hours to get tote bags, coffee, and AI-generated poetry prints from Claude’s “poetry camera.”

The campaign positioned Anthropic as the anti-hype AI brand: human, thoughtful, and a little analog on purpose.

The investors you’re pitching, the CFOs you’re targeting, the trendsetters you want on your app — they’re all walking the same streets. 

That’s why these startups are going all-in on real-world campaigns that meet New Yorkers where they live, commute, and scroll.

The city’s tech brands know the truth: If your customers are in New York, your next big campaign should be too.

Why tech bros are getting facelifts now (Wall Street Journal)

Dimon reups return-to-office push after opening New York HQ (Bloomberg)

Forum AI, an NYC-based platform designed to evaluate how major AI systems handle subjective and high-stakes topics, raised $3 million in seed funding. Lerer Hippeau led the round and was joined by Perplexity AI’s venture fund.

Ornn AI, an NYC-based global financial infrastructure startup, raised $5.7 million in seed funding. Crucible Ventures and Vine Ventures led, joined by Link Ventures, and Box Group.

Stickerbox, an NYC-based creativity tool for kids, raised $7 million in seed funding from Maveron, AI2, Matthew Brezina, and Serena Ventures.

Syllo, an NYC-based AI-powered litigation platform, raised $30 million in funding from Venrock, Two Seas Capital, and others.

nextNYC’s Checkwriters Dinner, bringing together 10-12 New York VCs with decision-making power to hear from companies looking to finish a round. Apply to pitch by October 29 here.

Robin Hood’s Catalyst 2026 cohort, a four-month accelerator for pre-seed social impact startups who are building technology that expands economic mobility — in areas like housing, education, health, financial access, and jobs. Apply by November 21 here.

The New York State Housing Finance Agency is seeking proposals from vendors to provide a technology solution to support MWBE/SDVOB compliance, goal setting, waiver tracking, reporting, and engagement across New York State. Submit your proposal by November 24 here.

Gutter Capital’s Elbow Grease, an eight-week accelerator for founders building applied AI in sectors that still run mostly offline like construction, real estate, energy, government, and small businesses. Apply by November 26 here.

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.

Company Ventures is hosting AI Review events, a year-long conversation series on the current and future state of AI. Submit your AI-related event for consideration here.

Union Square Ventures’ “usvwork” — a casual coworking day once a month for founders and builders in NYC. Apply here.

New York City Economic Development Corporation is re-launching the Greenlight Innovation Fund, a Request for Proposals to provide City capital funding for the development of facilities in New York City that support the Green Economy, Life Sciences, Advanced Technology and Creative Industries. Submit your proposals 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.