Five New York Companies Helping New York
There are a lot of ways tech companies can (and have!) contributed to the city’s fabric, and the five startups we’re spotlighting in this month’s Companies to Watch are perfect examples. Whether it’s to support solutions on public transit, energy efficiency, housing infrastructure, or emergency response, NYC is home to a flourishing sector of companies that are making the business case for being more civically engaged.
Figuring out how a city as complex as New York functions — and how best to get involved — can feel daunting, but also incredibly gratifying. To that end, we’re excited to launch the next season of Functions.NYC, a series we piloted with our members last year. Functions.NYC is a series of roundtable dialogues open to all employees of Tech:NYC member companies to talk with the civic and government leaders who really know what it takes to do just that — make a place like NYC function. Learn more about the discussions we have planned in the coming months, and sign up to get more updates directly, here.
Until then, here’s five companies making a real difference here in NYC and across the country. Read more about their work below.
STAE
What does your company do?
Stae CEO Dan Barasch: Stae is a modern data toolkit for local government leaders.
What brought you to New York?
DB: I am from here — fourth generation! I've tried to live elsewhere but always get pulled back. There's no place like NYC, its energy, its people. Every single block is a source of inspiration, of hope, of despair, of learning.
What is one of the most common problems that cities are trying to resolve with the help of Stae’s platform?
DB: Cities and local governments are increasingly challenged by making sense of new sources of data — from private vendors operating in the public realm to new data sensors on buildings, buses, and even streetscape features. As cities increasingly move to new "smart city" technologies, they increasingly need more sophisticated ways to make sense of all that new data.
Do you have a favorite project or city partnership where you’ve been able to apply Stae’s tool?
DB: We love all our projects! I am of course fond of our very first project, a partnership with the Rhode Island Department of Transportation, May Mobility, and 3x3, which involves managing the data from one of the largest deployments of autonomous vehicles in a U.S. city to date. It has been an incredible opportunity to help a city launch an innovative new technology and mode of transport.
Before joining Stae, you co-founded the Lowline, an ambitious social enterprise design project. What key insights did you bring to Stae from that experience?
DB: It is surprising how many similarities there are; in some ways, starting something always feels the same, whether it's designed as a social enterprise or a for-profit company. There are never enough resources — a big part of the job is developing and selling a vision; another big part of the job is developing and inspiring a talented team. I like to think I was able to bring a bit of creativity, resilience, and adaptability to this role at Stae, working consistently to help internal and external stakeholders to imagine something bigger, something that does not yet exist.
As more and more services become tech-enabled, cities are contending with what can be an overwhelming amount of data, especially in a place as complex as NYC. How are you making data more manageable for city and civic leaders?
DB: We provide a one-stop toolkit for managing data, across the full "data stack" from ingestion to standardization to warehousing, and beyond into insights and publishing. Traditionally cities either have massive in-house data teams who can build their own tools and purchase large enterprise solutions, or they have hired expensive consultants and patched together a home-grown solution with a hodgepodge of tech solutions, leading to a big Frankenstein approach that will likely break and require expensive fixes down the road. At Stae, alternatively, we can quickly and easily manage all steps along the way, with a software-as-a-service approach. As our head of product, Brooke McKim likes to say, we can "abstract away" all these painful steps in managing and making sense of data, allowing government leaders to do what they most want to do: use better data to make better policy.
What’s the learning curve for your platform? What tips do you have government leaders with non-technical backgrounds who’d like to use a service like Stae?
DB: Our product is extremely user friendly, and we provide a basic degree of training to enable government folks with non-technical backgrounds to get up and running. I'd tell government leaders: don't be afraid to pilot new technologies! We offer free pilots to allow for a low-risk, short-term way to test our tech toolkit, and see if it helps solve problems and helps make policymaking smoother and more efficient.
What one city infrastructure project do you hope Stae helps solve in 2020?
DB: I can't say where just yet... but Stae is about to announce a very exciting project to manage affordable housing data monitoring in a city in California. It is an incredible — and I think replicable — opportunity to help local government better manage goal-setting around affordable housing, which I consider to be among the largest and most intractable public policy challenges facing our cities worldwide.
How do you get to your office?
DB: I walk.
Where do you get your favorite pizza slice?
DB: Two Boots Pizza.
Where do you get your favorite bagel?
DB: Black Seed.
What’s your favorite New York building?
DB: Cooper Union.
What’s the best place in New York for a coffee or lunch meeting?
DB: Café Select.
If you could lead one city government agency for a day, which would it be?
DB: Parks and Rec! (Don't know if I'm more of a Leslie Knope or a Ron Swanson.)
BLUEPRINT POWER
What does your company do?
Blueprint Power co-founder and CEO Robyn Beavers: Blueprint’s platform uses advanced data analytics to help buildings cut carbon, while generating revenues from onsite renewable, distributed energy. As a result, we are helping buildings to become active participants in the power grid and we are lighting up new distributed energy networks city by city.
Why did you found your company in NYC?
RB: NYC is the most important and densest real estate market in the country and also boasts some of the most ambitious climate mandates and deregulated energy markets. We look to build on successes here and then grow to cities across the country and the globe.
During times when the real estate market is not as strong, how does Blueprint make sure that demand for its product is still there?
RB: Our technology works regardless of real estate market conditions. In fact, we can be an especially good partner when times are lean. Blueprint Power unlocks new revenue for real-estate owners by transforming their buildings into power plants and connecting them to new energy markets and customers. They can save money and cut their carbon outtake at the same time.
What incentives do buildings and real estate owners have in connecting more directly to energy markets? What are your 2020 goals for getting more NYC buildings added to your platform?
RB: Connecting to energy markets means more revenues and less carbon for buildings. Blueprint Power allows buildings to connect directly to the grid and sell excess power to an increasing number of markets and customers that are looking for supply from local, dynamic sources. As a result, we are helping the strained grid with tools so it can accommodate more renewables and electric mobility fleets, as well as making it easier for buildings to benefit from self-generated clean power. This gives owners financial and environmental flexibility for the future. For Blueprint, 2020 is focused on growing our network in NYC by adding more buildings to our platform.
You led Google’s first environmental strategy group. How has cleantech evolved since then? What best lessons did you take from that into founding Blueprint?
RB: When I first began in this industry, we saw pockets of innovation across sectors and geographies. The nascent clean energy industry was still figuring itself out, experiencing some major ups and down, and in many cases, was still in a commercialization phase that lacked scalability or more importantly, organized and focused capital needed to grow solutions into widespread integrated programs. In 2020, what has changed is that there is more capital and interest across all sectors of the economy. We are encouraged by similar cross-cutting trends in federal, state, and local regulatory activity (although always much more work to do there). We hope that this is the case on many levels — most of which, our planet doesn’t have time for us to delay.
What’s the next big idea in sustainability?
RB: Naturally, transforming networks of buildings into clean, intelligent power plants!
How do you get to your office?
RB: I walk to the Metro-North, take a train along the Hudson, and walk to my office — rain, snow or shine.
Where do you get your favorite pizza slice?
RB: The Parlor in Dobbs Ferry.
Where do you get your favorite bagel?
RB: The Great Northern Food Hall in Grand Central Station.
What’s your favorite New York building?
RB: The Hearst Building’s lobby (it’s the current favorite — I keep discovering new buildings all the time)!
If you could lead one city government agency for a day, which would it be?
RB: The NYC Department of Parks & Recreation, where I had a summer internship in college.
BLOCPOWER
What does your company do?
BlocPower founder and CEO Donnel Baird: BlocPower is a platform to analyze and finance energy upgrades in 5 million U.S. buildings. Right now, in partnership with Con Edison and the New York State government, we are working to remove apartment buildings in the Bronx entirely off of fossil fuels.
Why did you found your company in NYC?
DB: My wife and I both grew up in NYC; we are New Yorkers. It helps that the Mayor is making a commitment to sustainability, and so is Wall Street. We wanted to model that we could move buildings from fossil fuels in NYC, then take those learnings to Oakland, Philadelphia, and Milwaukee — cities we’re expanding to this spring.
Your platform is specifically working to retrofit buildings in inner cities. Why are you focused on that environment?
DB: Buildings cause 67% of NYC’s greenhouse gas emissions. Underserved buildings and affluent buildings waste the most energy per square foot. Affluent buildings have the capital to reduce fossil fuel consumption, underserved buildings don’t. There’s a significant white space serving neglected urban buildings, and we are filling it.
You’re a Bed Stuy native. Did growing up there inform the model you’ve built for BlocPower or how you run your business?
DB: Growing up in an underserved community helps me to understand the market segment. Traveling state to state and working in inner cities across the country as a senior staffer on the 2007-2008 Obama campaign helped me see that the patterns of unhealthy and inefficient building energy waste in the buildings I grew up in in Bed Stuy were amplified across dozens of cities across the country.
What sorts of partnerships — be they with municipalities, utilities, other community groups — have really demonstrated BlocPower’s success?
DB: We partner with individual building owners; city, state, and federal governments; and utilities. Our relationship with Metro IAF, a community organizing network of faith-based institutions, is one of our important partnerships. Our partnership with Con Edison is also critical, as is our partnership with the NYC Mayor's Office of Sustainability. We also partner with equipment manufacturers and investment banks. We are grateful for our partnerships with Kapor Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, our major investors.
Job creation is a key part of BlocPower’s business. How does that component fit in?
DB: We increase employment opportunities for underserved people while increasing the supply of construction firms and workers needed in our distributed green buildings transactions. We’ve worked with NYCHA residents and CUNY graduates and trained them to participate in a high-tech startup environment.
What’s next for sustainability? What do you hope there’s more public conversation on in 2020?
DB: More people are becoming focused on venture returns from the sustainability sector. That’s good. Hopefully it’s not too little too late. Applying ML, IoT, blockchain will become the baseline.
How do you get to your office?
DB: The F train. Sometimes it runs express on the way home, which is amazing.
Where do you get your favorite pizza slice?
DB: The lamb merguez pizza from Bodrum on the Upper West Side.
Where do you get your favorite bagel?
DB: We live by Catskill Bagel Co. in Ditmas Park.
What’s your favorite New York building?
DB: The American Museum of Natural History.
What’s the best place in New York for a coffee or lunch meeting?
DB: I do a lot of meetings at coffee shops near the West 4th Street subway stop. Easy to get in and get out to Brooklyn, and lots of trains from both sides of Manhattan run through West 4th.
If you could lead one city government agency for a day, which would it be?
DB: NYCHA. I would train all the residents to green the 3,000 buildings they live in, creating thousands of jobs, a massive economic boom for the city, and a massive reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. If we did that NYC would be the greenest city on the planet. And I could do it in one day, easy.
NEAR SPACE LABS
What does your company do?
Near Space Labs co-founder and CEO Hripsime Rema Matevosyan: Near Space Labs delivers affordable and large scale imagery, that is both highly detailed and frequently updated. We provide actionable intelligence to decision makers in businesses and municipalities where and when it matters.
What brought you to New York?
HRM: We moved to New York after being accepted to URBAN-X accelerator by MINI/BMW and a fund called Urban.Us. NYCs growing tech scene, including its urban-focused community, was appealing for us.
How would you describe your technology? What differentiates your satellites from what most of us more traditionally think of as a drone?
HRM: We’re a full stack hardware and software company. We build and operate an industry-first robotic vehicle that flies in the stratosphere, twice higher than planes, but much closer to the earth than satellites. For the first time in our industry we’re able to create imagery of the earth that is both highly detailed and persistent. The imagery is then processed in our cloud-native chain and delivered to our customers through our open source API. We will soon be releasing major integrations with established GIS tools and our very own imagery viewer.
What sorts of partnerships has Near Space had with municipalities? How are they using your data to inform policy decisions they may be working on?
HRM: Our imagery product can help municipalities track the status of urban infrastructure, including roads, coastal barriers, etc.; provide real-time and actionable insights for efficient emergency response; help public works departments track progress of their projects all across the city; and many others. All this with one single product, that is able to provide city-wide data and insights.
What imaging projects have been favorites so far? Are there any unique terrains or locations you’ve been able to explore?
HRM: We love cities. The most rewarding of all for me is being able to support businesses and municipalities assess the damage and respond to extreme weather events.
Laws regulating the use of drones and other airborne technologies are often complex, especially in a place like NYC. How are you working with city governments to help innovate their ability to utilize Near Space’s platforms?
HRM: We’re seamlessly integrated with the aviation system — you can even track us in widely known flight tracking tools. We worked with the FAA and various ATCs in a number of states across the country.
How do you get to your office?
HRM: I take B/C or 1/2/3 trains, and walk or bike when the weather is nice.
Where do you get your favorite pizza slice?
HRM: Tough one, because I have many. Will go with Sottocasa in Harlem.
Where do you get your favorite bagel?
HRM: Frankel's Delicatessen & Appetizing or Orwashers.
What is the best New York waterfront?
HRM: Brooklyn Bridge Park.
What’s your favorite New York building?
HRM: Gosh, there are too many! The Shed — I’m biased, as I like how tech-forward is it, plus my friend is one of the architects. But have to give it to Bjarke Ingels’ Via 57 West and Santiago Calatrava’s World Trade Center Oculus.
What’s the best place in New York for a coffee or lunch meeting?
HRM: I love walking meetings, so Central Park or literally any other waterfront park I’m closest to.
If you could lead one city government agency for a day, which would it be?
HRM: The NYC Emergency Management office.
SIMPLESENSE
What does your company do?
SimpleSense co-founder and CEO Eric Kanagy: Each workday, 7,000 U.S. employees experience an emergency at work, and 597 die. The time it takes first responders to reach victims is the most significant factor in this life & death situation, made worse by an antiquated 911 system. SimpleSense solves this problem and saves lives. We integrate data from 911 into corporate and military security operations, enabling the transfer of critical information that saves precious time per incident.
What brought you to New York?
EK: NYC is one of the best places to found a startup; there’s a vast network of founders experiencing similar problems and a wide range of startups covering all sectors. Everyone also passes through New York, so it’s much easier to get in-person meetings. And there’s an endless buffet of events, thought leadership, and networking opportunities.
You’ve spent time growing the business in Erie, PA, but what brought you to Brooklyn
EK: New York City is a global hub for SecureTech, peer startups like RapidSOS, Mark43, and Citizen all relocated here for that reason. There’s also a deep talent pool filled with developers and experienced early-stage startup pros. We’ve taken residence at New Lab in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. It’s the perfect testing ground for startups inside the broader NYC ecosystem, especially for startups that intersect with government in any way.
Does NYC’s density and unique urban environment present challenges that, say, you don’t have to worry about in Erie? How has that changed your product strategy?
EK: While Erie is a small city, SimpleSense’s first Fortune 500 user has their headquarters located right in the middle of a densely-populated urban environment. It’s similar to population densities in parts of Queens and Brooklyn. The security challenges the company faces, in terms of volume and types of incidents, mirror other large employers located in mixed-use, dense environments across the country.
Is IoT technology, like keyless entry, creating new obstacles for first responders to respond to emergencies?
EK: Absolutely! We started in the IoT space and while IoT promises and is making progress towards connecting everything, we learned early on through conversations with firefighters and police that emergency response has seen little improvement. It’s super frustrating for first responders to know that critical data exists in a web service or database somewhere but can’t be accessed at a critical time. So this became our mission — to connect the world’s critical information in the pursuit of saving lives.
What dream partnerships or initiatives are you looking forward to launching in 2020?
EK: We just announced a large contract to install with the U.S. Air Force in Las Vegas, which we’re obviously excited about. We also just joined the Urban Tech Hub at New Lab and are eager to explore opportunities for testing our tech in the densest city in the U.S. We have many more initiatives in the works that we’ll be able to talk about as we get farther into the year.
How do you get to your office?
EK: The F train or Citibike.
Where do you get your favorite pizza slice?
EK: Scarr’s, hand’s down #1 NY-style slice.
Where do you get your favorite bagel?
EK: Kossar's.
What is the best New York waterfront?
EK: Inwood Hill Park.
What’s your favorite New York building?
EK: My 1800s-era Chinatown apartment building.
What’s the best place in New York for a coffee or lunch meeting?
EK: Le Pain Quotidien.
If you could lead one city government agency for a day, which would it be?
EK: The NYC Department of Sanitation.
All illustrations by Elly Rodgers
New York City 5th Ave Vertical: by Stephan Guarch/Shutterstock.com