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Council Leader Wants Tech Startups to Make It in New York, Too
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By Yuliya Chernova, WSJ Pro
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Good day. How can New York keep attracting entrepreneurs and stay competitive? That question strikes a personal chord for New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin.
Menin said that her son recently moved to San Francisco to launch a business. He told her he needs to be in Silicon Valley.
“That is not the attitude we need,” Menin said. She was speaking to a packed room in City Hall Monday with Andreessen Horowitz General Partner David Haber as part of the kickoff for New York Tech Week, a series of tech-focused events in the city.
Menin said she is optimistic about New York’s potential to retain and attract tech startups, but she’s concerned that other parts of the country are gaining on New York.
What can the local government do about it?
Menin said the government “cannot use rhetoric” that pushes businesses away. Asked on the sidelines whether she was referring to the recent spat between New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and billionaire Ken Griffin, she said government officials need to use “positive rhetoric” when it comes to businesses and choose their words carefully.
She praised Cornell Tech, a graduate school created by Cornell University and the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology on Manhattan’s Roosevelt Island, for producing new startups locally. At the same time, New York needs new programs, Menin said. She suggested that New York develop a homegrown version of startup-accelerator Y Combinator, which is based in Silicon Valley.
Andreessen’s Haber said he’s bullish on New York. Historically, there was a view that the depth of engineering talent isn’t sufficient in New York. “I don’t think that’s the rate limiter anymore,” Haber said.
While the San Francisco Bay Area is stronger in AI infrastructure, New York has an advantage when it comes to the AI apps market, he said. “The customers who need AI to actually work—banks, hospitals, newsrooms, asset managers—are all here, within a few miles of each other,” Haber wrote in a post on X. That’s a view echoed by other New York venture capitalists.
Menin said the municipal government is working on affordable housing initiatives to make the city more livable, developing workforce AI training programs and launching more public-private partnerships. Haber suggested New York use AI tools to help New Yorkers access city services in a more intuitive manner.
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And now on to the news...
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Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei BHAWIKA CHHABRA/REUTERS
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Anthropic files to go public. Anthropic, the artificial intelligence lab recently valued at nearly $1 trillion, said Monday it has filed confidentially for an initial public offering, setting up a blockbuster year for IPOs. The filing could put the company behind the Claude AI model on a path to go public this fall.
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The year could end up being the biggest ever for money raised through IPOs if Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceX all make their debuts.
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SpaceX is aiming to raise as much as $80 billion or more in an offering next week.
More: Why It Matters if OpenAI or Anthropic Wins the IPO Race
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Wingman Growth Partners Bags $215 Million to Invest in Software
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Wingman Growth Partners has closed its inaugural fund at its $215 million hard cap, hoping to make bets in software despite the market tumult that has followed an onrush of artificial-intelligence technology. Set up last year in Greenwich, Conn., the firm focuses on investing in software, data and financial technology businesses. Contrary to prevailing market sentiment, though, Wingman sees AI as a help—not a harm—to its target companies, according to founder Jeff Machlin. Before starting Wingman, Machlin was a partner at Brighton Park Capital.
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Turncoat AI Agents Emerge as the New Inside Hackers
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The race to automate an ever wider range of workplace tasks is creating an army of inside would-be hackers, with cybercriminals hijacking companies’ internal artificial-intelligence agents to steal sensitive business data. Already one of the toughest cybersecurity gaps to plug, insider attacks carried out by autonomous AI agents with privileged access to digital systems are proving even harder to prevent, security experts say.
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Funds
Palo Alto, Calif.-based Gigascale Capital closed its first institutional fund at $250 million to invest in early-stage startups rebuilding the physical economy for climate impact.
People
Veriten, an investor focusing on energy, power and industrial markets, hired Sharmila Mulligan and Karl Liapunov as venture partners.
Scale Venture Partners promoted Sabina Smith to principal. Prior to joining the firm, she was a product manager at Microsoft Security.
Exits
Salesforce agreed to acquire Contentful, a content management platform for creating and deploying digital content, for an undisclosed amount.
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Impulse Space, a Redondo Beach, Calif.-based startup building in-space mobility infrastructure, landed $500 million in Series D funding co-led by 137 Ventures and Banner VC.
ZutaCore, a Foster City, Calif.-based AI data center cooling technology provider, scored $100 million in Series C funding from investors including Mitsubishi Electric, Carrier Ventures and Samsung Ventures.
Mecka AI, a New York-based startup building a data and deployment layer for physical AI, picked up a $60 million investment. Framework Ventures led the funding, with Vance Spencer joining the company’s board. Menlo Ventures and others also invested.
Sekai, a San Francisco-based consumer platform where users can build software by describing what they want, secured $26 million in seed and Series A funding. Khosla Ventures and Connect Ventures co-led the $20 million Series A round.
Invisix, a startup developing measurement tools for advanced chip manufacturing, raised a €20 million (about $23 million) seed round from investors including Hitachi Ventures, Transition Ventures and imec.xpand. The company is based in The Netherlands.
RevEng.AI, a cybersecurity startup, nabbed $15 million in Series A funding led by NATO Innovation Fund.
Handshake, a London-based AI-powered retail agreement platform, grabbed a $3.2 million investment led by Triple Point Ventures.
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Estonia distributed free ChatGPT to nearly 20,000 school students earlier this year. PHOTO: BIRGIT PÜVE FOR WSJ
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