These four early-stage tech startups in the city are still raising venture capital—here’s why

BY CARA EISENPRESS

Venture capital dollars have been slower to fund startup companies during the past several quarters, especially in later rounds and at expensive valuations. Companies at earlier stages, however, are still raising money to fund new products, acquire market share and add staff.

Here are four that have raised money in the city in recent weeks.

QR codemaker adds $25 million a restaurant table, where orders can then be placed without a server.

Beaconstac’s technology also lets businesses track certain information about the customer doing the scanning.

CruISEBOunD

FUNDING DETAILS

Cruise deal site lands $10 million

$10 million Series A INVESTORS Priceline Chief Executive Jeff Boyd; PAR Capital Ventures of Boston; Steve Kaufer, co-founder of Tripadvisor

HEADQUARTERS

Gramercy

In the resurgent travel industry, Cruisebound announced that it will put $10 million in new funding toward enhancing its cruisesearch platform and marketing to more would-be cruisers.

Tech-enabled help for workers in financial crisis gets almost $2.9 million

Employers who want to help their workers in the midst of financial hardship can use Canary. The startup closed a funding round this month.

E.POP

FUNDING DETAILS

$1.6 million in seed funding

INVESTORS Undisclosed

HEADQUARTERS Financial District co-founder Rachel Schneider said: “Everyone is susceptible to falling on hard times.”

The company said people have scanned its clients’ 1.8 million codes a total of 150 million times. Chief Executive Sharat Potharaju said the startup is profitable and tripled its revenue last year.

BEaCOnSTaC

FUNDING DETAILS

$25 million Series A

INVESTORS Telescope Partners of San Francisco and Accel of Palo Alto, California

HEADQUARTERS

Midtown

FOUNDER Sharat

Potharaju

Beaconstac allows businesses to create and track the use of quick-response codes, known as QR codes, the black-and-white patterned squares that customers can scan with their phone’s camera to access information. The company charges individuals $15 to $49 per month and businesses as much as $99 per month to create and customize QR codes. The codes allow customers to find more information about a business, such as a menu at

FOUNDERS PierreOlivier Lepage, Tyler Barber

“There is a pressing need for frictionless technology that meets consumers on- and offline, and QR codes are rising to the challenge,” Potharaju said.

The funding will go to hiring employees and further developing the platform, he said.

Beaconstac’s customers include FedEx, Marriott and Revlon.

Co-founders PierreOlivier Lepage and Tyler Barber sold a previous company, Rocket Travel, which let travelers increase their airline miles with hotel bookings, to Priceline for about $20 million.

Lepage said he later noticed that researching cruises was difficult because users had no way to compare prices, rooms, amenities and routes. Booking on mobile was also a pain point, he said. So he and Barber designed Cruisebound, adding bits of education to help first-time bookers.

Canary gives employers the chance to raise and send out tax-advantaged financial relief through its Grant Circle.

FOUNDERS Sunil

Rajan, Sunay Shah

Canary argues that reducing financial stress on a workforce is good business, reducing the need to replace people who have to step back due to a personal financial crisis.

Canary

FUNDING DETAILS

About $2.9 million

INVESTORS Capital

One Ventures of McLean, Virginia

HEADQUARTERS

Flatiron

FOUNDER Rachel Schneider

The company’s clients include Clear Channel Outdoor, Harvard Business Publishing and Visionworks. The average grant size was $848 per person, with two-thirds of the grantees earning less than $50,000 last year.

But the appeal of Canary is wider, CEO and

Seed round for paper-free receipts company Paper receipts are passé, argues E.pop, a newly financed company with headquarters in New York and offices in London and the Middle East. With a single platform open to both merchants and consumers, E.pop says it can help reduce the number of paper receipts printed while also improving security and creating a channel for marketing.

If consumers download the company’s app, the founders said in a news release, they can then have all new transactions documented securely without needing to share email information with each new retailer or trying to store a crumpled-up paper receipt for their records.

The firm said it will add staff to its current team of 10 and continue adding functionality and partners to its platform with the funds. ■

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VP, Global Employee Relations Manager (HR) (Pacific Investment Management Company LLC (PIMCO) – New York, NY); Mult. pos. avail. Offering salary of $107,000$215,000 per year. Create scalable global Employee Relations strtgs & programs for bus to dvlp the next phase of Employee Relations function, includ’g idea generation on best practices & implementation. Review & evaluate Employee Relations-related processes to create workflow for Employee Relations collab w/ Human Resources Business Partners, Human Resources Centers of Excellence, & internal & external counsel. F/T. Apply w/ resume to trish.jusay@pimco.com. Ref. JobID: 6501102.

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Positions Available

Analyst (Citadel Americas Services LLC – New York, NY); Multi. Pos. Avail. Offering salary of $200,000 - $250,000 per year. Analyze fin. statements & bus. strategies, build detailed fin. models & conduct comp. due diligence & channel checks. F/T. Reqs a Master’s degree (or foreign equiv) in Fin, Accounting, Econ, Stats, Tech, Fin Engin or a related quant field & 2 yrs of exp in the job offered or performing fundamental equity research & analysis. In lieu of a Master’s degree (or foreign equiv) in Fin, Accounting, Econ, Stats, Tech, Fin Engin or a related quant field & 2 years of exp in the job offered or performing fundamental equity research & analysis, will accept a Bachelor’s degree (or foreign equiv) in Fin, Accounting, Econ, Stats, Tech, Fin Engin or a related quantitative field & 5 years of exp in the job offered or performing fundamental equity research & analysis. Education, training, or exp must include: Conducting equity valuations, corporate financial statement analysis & linear regression calculations on behalf of a global financial services institution; Financial modeling using MS Excel & VBA to project industry growth & forward company earnings; Obtaining & analyzing data from Bloomberg or similar third party source; Working as a long/short hedge fund analyst; & Presenting investment recommendations to clients or portfolio managers.

Resumes: citadelrecruitment@citadel.com. JobID: 7028751.

Associate (Citadel Americas Services LLC – New York, NY); Mult pos avail. Offer’ng salary of $125,000 - $175,000 per year. Conduct differentiated, bottom-up fundamental fin rsrch & analysis of companies, bus models & industries. F/T. Reqs a Bach degree (or foreign equiv) in Fin, Econ, Engin, CS or a rel field. Edu, train, or exp must include the follow’g: perform’g sell-side equity rsrch, invstmnt banking, or invstmnt mngmnt; maintain’g detailed income statement models & relevant market data spreadsheets in MS Excel or sim; build’g, assess’g & manipulat’g models & communicat’g them to internal mngmnt & cross-functional stakeholders; analyz’g info in SEC docs, earn’gs transcripts & sell side rsrch reports; conduct’g rsrch projects that examine industry growth & competitive dynamics, includ’g regulatory & tax dvlpmnts; &, conduct’g meet’gs & phone calls to communicate with senior management of companies under coverage.

Resumes: citadelrecruitment@citadel.com

JobID: 7028754.

Data Engineer (Citadel Americas Services LLC – New York, NY); Mult pos avail. Offer’ng salary of $150,000 - $225,000 per year. Coordinate the dsgn, dvlpmnt & maintenance of complex data ingestion processes & data products that assist in the investment rsrch process. F/T. Reqs a Bach degree (or foreign equiv) in CS, Info Tech, Engin, Physics, Math, Stat, Econ or a rel field. Edu, train’g or exp must include the follow’g: sftwre engineer’g; perform’g data mining & transformation as well as Web data extraction; systems dsgn includ’g translat’g bus reqs into systems functionalities & build’g clear user interfaces; programm’g in Python or sim; data structures, algorithms or comp architecture; big data process’g & cloud tech includ’g Spark, Hadoop, AWS S3 or sim; &, database dvlpmnt in MS SQL Server, HP Vertica, Snowflake, MongoDB or sim.

Resumes: citadelrecruitment@citadel.com. JobID: 7028756.

Trader (Citadel Securities Americas Services LLC – New York, NY) Mult. pos. avail. Offer’ng salary of $140,000 to $225,000 per year. Monitor & analyze incoming market information, economic news & trad’g activity to manage portfolio risk, identify investment opportunities & make trad’g decisions. F/T. Reqs a Bachelor’s degree (or foreign equiv) in Fin, Econ, Math, Eng, CompSci, Phys, or a rel quant field. Edu, train’g, or exp must incl the follow’g: work’g in a data-driven quant trad’g envirnmnt; financial & statistical modell’g incl time-series analysis; work’g in financial mrkts with derivative pricing; programm’g & script’g languages includ’g Python, R, C++, or similar; stat tools incl R, Matlab, or similar; & analyz’g large data sets & other informational input to inform investment or trad’g decisions.

Resumes: citadelrecruitment@citadel.com. JobID: 7028787.

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Marketing Analytics & Insights (Pacific Investment Management Company (PIMCO)– New York, NY) Mult. pos. avail. Offering salary of $159,058 to $170,000 /year. Leverage CRM & Market’ng data to analyze client journeys that lead to imprvd client exp. & determine how Marketing activities can be added to imprv client exps. Using the same data, determine ways in which Marketing can increase the effectiveness of its efforts based on business goals. F/T. Apply w/ resume to Lupe.Rubalcaba@pimco.com. Ref. JobID: 6761100.

and spend $150 million to combat a growing opioid-overdose trend.

In his speech, delivered in his native borough at the Queens eatre in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, Adams painted a rosy picture of the city’s Covid-19 pandemic recovery, compared to where it stood when he took o ce last year.

“One year later, our city is on the pathway to being safer. Our economy is recovering, and our stores, subways and hotels are full,” the mayor said. “Our children are back in school with their teachers and friends. Our theaters are thriving, our restaurants are booked, and New Yorkers are back to work.”

But amid fears of a looming recession, planned cuts to the city budget and the need for buy-in from the state and federal governments, it is unclear how quickly the proposals might come to fruition.

Garment District rezoning

Within weeks, Adams’ o ce said, the city will begin work on a plan to rezone part of Midtown to convert blocks zoned for manufacturing and o ce space into needed housing.

Although the mayor was light on details during his speech, City Council member Keith Powers said the initiative would focus on the Garment District, which has been held up as a prime target for such conversions given its high vacancy rates and central location. Nearly 18% of the area’s o ce space, spanning 4.6 million square feet, is vacant, according to an October report by the Garment District Alliance—a landlord-supported group that applauded the mayor’s plan ursday.

Critically, as Politico rst reported, the plan might have the backing of both council members who represent the area. Powers, whose East Side territory includes parts of the Garment District, said he supports the project, and West Side member Erik Bottcher pointed this month to a city planning study that recommended building new housing in the area.

Adams o ered no details about how many housing units could be created in the Garment District, what blocks would be a ected or a time frame for when the monthslong rezoning process would begin. It is unclear how much of a dent it would put in Adams’ moonshot goal of building 500,000 homes in the next 10 years.

Powers said the rezoning would start with a study to see “how much opportunity there is,” while City Hall said it would begin talking to community members soon about the proposal.

e alluring o ces-to-apartments concept has captured the city’s imagination as Midtown struggles to rebound from the pandemic. But the logistically di cult renovations will not happen overnight if they happen at all.

“People approached us left and right about converting this building,” a broker who arranged the sale of one Garment District commercial structure told Crain’s this month. “But the development costs would be high, and this is not a luxury neighborhood, so it will be hard to charge enough for the apartments to cover those costs.” roughout the speech, Adams heaped praise on Hochul, who was seated in the auditorium. She could play a key role in making the mayor’s policy goals a reality in Albany.

Building housing would represent an about-face for the Garment District, which was rezoned for more commercial space in 2018.

Adams wants at least some of the new Midtown housing to be rent-restricted, according to City Hall.

Achieving that could hinge on whether state legislators renew the lapsed 421-a tax break this year. Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul both have identi ed it as a priority.

MWBEs, CUNY, apprenticeships, Navy Yard to grow jobs

Adams pledged ursday to signi cantly boost the amount of money awarded via city contracts to minority- and woman-owned business enterprises—aiming for $25 billion by the 2026 scal year and $60 billion by 2030.

About $1.2 billion in contracts was awarded to MWBEs in scal 2021, according to a city comptroller study. Business owners have complained about difculty securing city jobs despite a 2005 law intended to ensure just that.

Adams also revealed plans to expand the CUNY 2X Tech program, which by 2021 had achieved its goal of doubling the number of City University students graduating with a bachelor’s degree in a technology-related eld. It will grow to serve more campuses, including community colleges, with a focus on communities of color and rst-generation students, the mayor said.

A new accelerator program aims to set up apprenticeships for 30,000 New Yorkers by 2030, including youths and adults and focusing on nance, health care, marketing and information technology, according to City Hall. A citywide campaign will try to sign up potential participants, it said.

“ is is on-the-job experience with an opportunity for permanent employment in high-demand careers, and it will ensure employers can tap the talent they need,” Adams said.

Last year the city and the state together announced a $1.6 billion science park and research campus will be built in Kips Bay within the next few years. In his address, the mayor built upon the life science focus. e city’s e ort to become a “global center of sustainable biotech” will start with opening an incubator at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Adams said, “where biotech startups will transform the way we eat, build and protect our environment.”

Citywide composting push is back on the agenda

Fresh o a three-month pause to the popular composting program in Queens that angered the borough’s food scrappers, Adams on ursday announced a citywide expansion of free composting, supplanting the curbside program that has existed in a patchwork of neighborhoods since 2013.

Queens and Brooklyn will be served rst starting this year, a Sanitation Department spokesperson con rmed, followed in 2024 by Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island. Experts say composting will play a key role in helping New York health in the next few weeks. e course of action, he said, will include new clubhouses for people with serious mental illness that will o er peer support, community access to services and employment, and educational opportunities.

Adams was noticeably less bullish than in the past on the city’s ability to get a handle on the in ux of asylum-seekers—now more than 42,000 people, by his count— who have entered the city in recent months, straining its shelter system and other services. Instead, he repeated a call for more state and federal aid.

“We will continue to do our part, but we need everyone else to do their part as well,” he said. “We need more help from Albany and Washington, D.C. e asylum-seeker crisis is a national issue, not a local one.”

$150 million for opioid harm reduction and treatment

Employment for nurses and people with disabilities

In the aftermath of the nurses strike at Monte ore and Mount Sinai, during which members of the New York State Nurses Association fought for better wages and safer sta -to-patient ratios, Adams has promised to focus on nurse education and retention.

e city, he said, will partner with CUNY on an education initiative to support 30,000 current and aspiring nurses during the next ve years with training, mentorship and clinical placements.

e mayor also pledged to focus on creating employment opportunities for New Yorkers with disabilities. He said that currently, only about 1 in 3 people with a disability in the city are employed. New York will launch a Center for Workforce and Workplace Accessibility and Inclusion, which will connect about 2,500 people with disabilities to jobs, he said.

A mandate for Lyft, Uber to go emissions-free by 2030 e city will require Lyft and Uber to transition their ride-hail eets to zero emissions by 2030, as part of a broader push to convert more vehicles to electric, Adams announced ursday.

“ at’s zero emissions for over 100,000 vehicles on our city streets. And it will be achieved with no new costs for individual drivers,” Adams said. “We’re pleased that both companies are embracing this shift, and we look forward to working with them to get it done.” achieve its climate goals, and it could help cut down on the city’s rat population by removing organic waste from the garbage.

Homelessness, continuing migrant crisis in focus

Adams said that this year the city will work with state and federal partners to o er free health care to New Yorkers experiencing homelessness who have been living at Department of Homeless Services shelters for more than seven days. He added that the city will work to provide care where people need it, not just in emergency rooms and hospitals. e plan is part of a larger initiative to focus on “upstream solutions,” he added, instead of providing reactive care when people are already in trouble.

“ at means eliminating bureaucratic barriers and focusing on the structural challenges that so often force people into crisis,” he said.

Following the plan he announced in November to address mental health care, he said he will unveil a broader plan for mental e city will use $150 million from the state’s opioid settlement fund to pay for opioid use harm reduction and treatment programs, Adams said. Treatment advocates are calling on the governor to invest in the programs, following recently published city data that revealed an unprecedented level of overdose deaths in 2021.

Combating fentanyl—a deadly additive that was found to be involved in about 80% of overdose deaths in the city—is a priority, Adams said.

“Do you remember what [heroin and crack cocaine] did to our city and country? at is what fentanyl is about to do right now,” he said.

“Fentanyl is destroying our cities across America. We have to ght back.”

An emphasis on women’s health care, home visits e Adams administration has been encouraging companies and New York drivers to switch to electric vehicles, and to advocate for the charging infrastructure needed to support them. e mandate comes a day after the TLC approved rules to distribute 1,000 new ride-hail licenses speci cally for electric four-wheelers later this year, and as the city works to electrify its own eet of more than 30,000 vehicles.

Adams this month unveiled a plan to focus on women’s health care this year, and the city started making abortion medication available at some of its sexual health clinics.

During the State of the City address, the mayor said the city will continue to support new mothers with doula programs and home visits. He added that in the coming months he will announce a comprehensive women’s health agenda.

Lyft and Uber have pledged to reach zero emissions by 2030 by transitioning their respective eets to electric vehicles. Adams’ mandate would formalize those commitments for all high-volume ridehail eets in the city through a new Taxi and Limousine Commission rule it plans to propose in the next month or two, City Hall spokesman Charles Lutvak told Crain’s e public will have an opportunity to comment on the proposed rule during a Taxi and Limousine Commission hearing, Lutvak said.

TLC Commissioner David Do said in a statement that the agency will unveil more details on the initiative in the coming weeks.

In separate statements, both Lyft and Uber said they look forward to working with the city.

“New York’s commitment will accelerate an equitable citywide transition to electric,” Paul Augustine, Lyft’s director of sustainability, told Crain’s. “With smart, targeted investments in incentives and charging infrastructure, we’ll help tear down the barriers that prevent drivers from making the switch to electric.” ■

DAVIS also chairs a health equity subcommittee for New Jersey.

Michellene Davis

RESIDES West Orange, New Jersey, and Washington, D.C.

GREW UP Camden, New Jersey

EDUCATION Bachelor’s in English and political science, Seton Hall University; JD, Seton Hall University School of Law

NEW GROOVE Davis is exploring becoming a holistic chef and nutrition coach. She said she’s fascinated by raw veganism. “No one in my family wants to ever speak with me again until this phase passes,” she said.

EXTENDED FAMILY TIES Davis has nine godchildren ranging in age from 8 to 24.

LUCKY BREAK She served as the executive director and chief executive of the New Jersey Lottery from 2005 to 2007. She says her skills as an attorney—critical analysis and straightforward communication— were honed there.

WORLD TRAVELER During her interview with Crain’s, Davis spoke from Ghana, where she was attending a health retreat.