News You Might Have Missed

Author

Walter Charnizon
October 24, 2025

🧠 What to watch

The New York startup scene is quietly shifting — not just around consumer apps, but toward high-end tech like AI for biosecurity, quantum computing, and photonics. The signal we’re seeing: investors are treating deep‐tech as strategic, not just speculative. Below are three stories you’ll want to know.

1. AI meets biosecurity: NYC startup raises $30M

NYC-based startup Valthos has emerged from stealth with a $30 million round backed by OpenAI, Founders Fund and Lux Capital. They say the mission is: use AI to detect and defend against bio-weapons and AI-enabled biological threats.

👉 Takeaway: Deep tech isn’t just hardware in a mountain lab. AI + bio-security just became a “real” startup category in NYC.

2. NYC jumps into quantum: NYU launches a Quantum Institute

New York University announced a new Quantum Institute that will position the university as a global node in quantum information science & tech.


👉 Takeaway: NYC is signaling “we’re open for quantum business.” Startups and investors should take note.

3. Optics, photonics & deep-tech accelerator wins: Luminate NY Round 8

Luminate NY (the optics/photonics accelerator backed by the state of New York) recently announced winners of Round 8 of its optics, photonics & imaging accelerator competition — including a $1 million investment to one company.


👉 Takeaway: If your startup touches optics, sensors, imaging or hardware, accelerate-friendly funding is alive in NY.

🚀 Major Contract Awards

The United States Space Force has awarded over $1 billion in launch contracts for future military missions, with two major winners:

  • SpaceX won approximately $714 million for five launches.

  • United Launch Alliance (ULA) secured about $428 million for two launches.
    This reflects strong demand for private-sector launch providers and increases the strategic value of space infrastructure for defense.

Great startups run on more than great tech

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🤖 News about AI-Native Startups

  • Asymmetry Labs | $4.1M Seed (NYC) — Operating in stealth, building AI-driven risk analytics for alternative markets.

  • August | $7M Seed (NYC) — Columbia-born legal AI startup automating contract review and litigation prep for midsize law firms.

  • Profound | Series A (NYC) — “Answer-engine optimization” tools that help brands show up in generative-AI search results.

👉 Takeaway →
NYC’s AI scene is going vertical. The next wave of AI-native startups isn’t chasing chatbots — it’s embedding AI into real-world domains like law, finance, and brand analytics. Think data moats, not dopamine hits.

🏆Do You Qualify?

Since announcing TechDay’s new Sector Summits, everyone’s been asking how to attend. Here’s the story: attendance is by invitation only and capped at 200.

These business summits are where founders, VCs, and commercial partners meet for real deal-making driven by AI powered matchmaking.

👉 Takeaway: You need to qualify for an invitation.

Learn from leaders, benchmark with peers, find customers, partners and capital

🗽 Why This Matters

TechDay has helped NYC startups make their mark for more than a decade. Now, these new summits take that DNA — scale, connections, dealflow — and strip away the noise.

Just the right 200 people in the room.

👉 Takeaway: Think founders with traction, VCs writing checks, and corporate partners ready to buy.

🎯Apply here to attend:

🚀 Space Tech Takes Off

Firefly Aerospace Buys

Firefly Aerospace is acquiring missile-defense technology firm SciTec for ~$855M (in a combination of cash and stock). The deal strengthens Firefly’s footprint in defense and space software/data domains.

👉 Takeaway: Firefly’s recent IPO valued it near $9.8B, and this move shows it’s pushing beyond just rocket hardware.

Spacecoin sends blockchain data via satellite

Spacecoin, an emerging satellite startup, successfully transmitted secure data over 7,000 km using a nanosatellite in orbit — part of its mission to be a decentralized alternative to Starlink.

They currently operate one microsatellite (with plans to launch three more by year-end).👉 Takeaway: It’s a cross of space + blockchain + communications — a high-risk, high-reward wedge play in the satellite internet wars.

Arc wants to enable 1-hour global cargo

Not NYC-based, but a wild one: startup Arc is developing a system to deploy cargo into low Earth orbit and then return it to any point on Earth in under an hour.

I👉 Takeaway: It’s an audacious play, but indicative of how fast some “space startup” ideas are creeping into logistics, not just exploration.