NYC ecosystem · 2026 edition
AI startups in NYC: the rising class of 2026
New York startup funding had its best quarter since 2021 in Q2 2026 — $8.88B, per AlleyWatch’s tracking — and AI took the largest share. The list below reflects it: 42 of its 62 companies carry a latest verified figure dated 2025 or 2026, and seed rounds ($52M, $55M) reached sizes that were Series B numbers two years ago.
What counts as a “startup” here: NYC-headquartered, AI-native or close to it, and below unicorn scale — the growth tier ($200M+ valuations or $75M+ raised) and the emerging tier behind it. For the anchors and unicorns above this layer, see the full NYC AI 100 — and for who’s hiring today, the jobs index reads the job boards of 25 of the 62 companies listed here.
How this list was built: the same research pass behind the NYC AI 100 — headquarters verified company by company (an office in New York doesn’t count; several famous names on competitor lists failed this test), funding figures traced to dated announcements rather than aggregator databases, and AI-nativeness judged honestly. Companies whose latest verified round predates 2024 show that older date rather than a guessed current number. It refreshes annually with the 100; funding events between editions will be folded into the next one.
The growth tier
41 startups with $200M+ valuations or $75M+ raised — the layer where product-market fit is proven and the scaling question is being answered. Alphabetical; “backing” shows the latest verified valuation or total raised, with its date.
| Startup | What they build | Backing |
|---|---|---|
| Adaptive Security | AI phishing simulation and deepfake defense training | $81M raisedDec 2025 |
| AescapeShow Ep 3 | AI-powered robotic massage tables at scale | $128M raisedMar 2025 |
| April | Embedded AI tax filing for financial platforms | $78M raisedJul 2025 |
| Arbiter | AI-powered healthcare care-orchestration system | $400MNov 2025 |
| Augury | AI machine-health monitoring for industrial manufacturers | $75M raisedFeb 2025 |
| Chaos Labs | AI-driven risk management and oracles for DeFi | $75M raisedAug 2024 |
| Collective[i]Show Ep 2 | AI network for sales forecasting and revenue optimization | $130M raised |
| DualEntry | AI-native ERP/accounting software for mid-market | $90M raisedOct 2025 |
| Garner Health | Claims-data platform steering employees to top doctors | $218M raisedMay 2026 |
| H1 | Healthcare provider data platform with agentic AI | $750MNov 2021 |
| Hebbia | AI document analysis platform for finance and law | $700MJul 2024 |
| Hume AI | Emotionally intelligent voice AI models and API | $219MMar 2024 |
| Hyperscience | AI document processing and back-office automation | $299M raisedDec 2021 |
| Hyro | Responsible AI agent platform for healthcare | $95M raisedOct 2025 |
| Inspiren | AI monitoring for senior-living care and workflows | $135M raisedSep 2025 |
| K Health | AI primary-care clinical chat platform | $900MJul 2024 |
| Kustomer | Conversational CRM with AI customer-service agents | $90M raisedAug 2025 |
| Mirage (fka Captions) | AI video generation and editing research lab | $500MJul 2024 |
| Model ML | AI workflow automation for financial services | $75M raisedNov 2025 |
| Moment | AI-powered fixed-income investing and wealth operations software | $114M raisedMay 2026 |
| Nanotronics | AI-powered industrial inspection and autonomous manufacturing | $817MMar 2022 |
| Navina | AI clinical intelligence for outpatient physicians | $100M raisedMar 2025 |
| Noma Security | Security platform for AI agents and models | $132M raisedJul 2025 |
| Normal Computing | Thermodynamic computing chips for energy-efficient AI | $85M raisedMar 2026 |
| Ocrolus | AI document analysis for lending decisions | $500MSep 2021 |
| OpenRouter | Unified API routing applications to hundreds of LLMs | $188M raisedMay 2026 |
| Optimal Dynamics | AI decision engine for trucking and logistics | $95M raisedMay 2025 |
| Pepper | AI ecommerce platform for independent food distributors | $110M raisedFeb 2026 |
| Persado | AI-generated marketing language optimization | $130M raisedOct 2017 |
| Pinecone | Vector database powering AI retrieval at scale | $750MApr 2023 |
| Prepared | AI-powered assistive platform for 911 emergency response | $130M raisedMay 2025 |
| Regal | AI voice agents for contact centers | $83M raisedOct 2024 |
| Reserv | AI-powered insurance claims platform (P&C TPA) | $125M raisedMay 2026 |
| Rillet | AI-native ERP general ledger for high-growth companies | $500MAug 2025 |
| Slingshot AI | Foundation model for psychology; Ash therapy app | $93M raisedJul 2025 |
| Tabs | AI billing, collections, and revenue-recognition platform | $91M raisedSep 2025 |
| Taktile | AI risk-decisioning platform for financial institutions | $164M raisedJun 2026 |
| Tennr | AI automating patient referrals and fax intake | $605MJun 2025 |
| Vic.ai | AI invoice processing and accounts-payable automation | $115M raisedDec 2022 |
| Vim | Middleware connecting payers, providers, and EHRs | $95.1M raised |
| WorkFusion | AI agents automating financial-crime compliance | $386M raisedSep 2025 |
The emerging tier
21 younger companies — mostly seed through Series B — where the 2025–26 funding wave landed hardest. Several of these raised seed rounds larger than most Series As.
| Startup | What they build | Backing |
|---|---|---|
| Alaffia Health | Agentic AI for health-plan claims review | $73M raisedFeb 2026 |
| Anterior | Clinical AI copilot for payer prior authorization | $64M raisedFeb 2026 |
| Artemis | AI-native protective security layer | $55M raisedApr 2026 |
| Arthur | AI model monitoring and evaluation platform | $154MJun 2022 |
| Carbon Arc | AI platform structuring raw data into insights | $56M raisedMar 2025 |
| Comet | ML experiment tracking and LLM evaluation (Opik) | $70M raisedNov 2021 |
| Conceivable Life Sciences | AI- and robot-automated IVF laboratory | $50M raisedSep 2025 |
| Crosby | AI-native law firm for contract review | $60M raisedMar 2026 |
| Daydream | AI chat-based fashion shopping search agent | $50M raisedJun 2024 |
| Frame Security | AI cybersecurity for human risk management | $50M raisedMay 2026 |
| InstaLILY AI | Autonomous forward-deployed AI engineer agents for enterprises | $60M raisedJul 2026 |
| Intezer | AI-powered autonomous SOC and alert triage | $60M raisedSep 2024 |
| Manifest OS | Platform powering AI-native law firms | $60M raisedApr 2026 |
| Patlytics | AI patent drafting and IP litigation platform | $65M raisedApr 2026 |
| Radical AI | Autonomous AI lab discovering advanced materials | $55M raisedJul 2025 |
| Sixfold | AI underwriting agent for insurers | $50M raisedJan 2026 |
| SmarterDx | Clinical AI for hospital revenue integrity | $71M raisedMay 2024 |
| Spade | Real-time merchant intelligence for card transactions | $56.1M raisedMar 2026 |
| Trunk Tools | AI agents for construction project data | $70M raisedJul 2025 |
| Valence | AI coach for employee leadership development | $50M raisedSep 2025 |
| Vendelux | AI event-intelligence platform for B2B marketing | $71M raisedJul 2026 |
What the 2025–26 funding wave says about New York
The money is following New York’s industries, not chasing San Francisco’s. Read down the tables and the sectors repeat: insurance AI (Reserv, Sixfold), healthcare operations (Tennr, SmarterDx, Anterior, Hyro, Inspiren, Arbiter), legal and compliance (Patlytics, Manifest OS, Crosby), and finance workflows (Rillet, Tabs, DualEntry, Model ML). These are startups built next to their buyers — the underwriters, hospital systems, law firms, and CFO suites that make New York New York.
Seed rounds now look like Series Bs. Arbiter raised a $52M seed at a $400M valuation; Radical AI’s seed was $55M; Valthos took $30M out of the gate with OpenAI backing. When investors write seed checks that size, they are buying conviction in a team and a wedge, not traction — which tells you how contested the strongest NYC founding teams have become.
The same investors keep appearing. Across this list’s 2025–26 rounds, the recurring names are a16z, Sequoia, Khosla Ventures, General Catalyst, Lightspeed, and Kleiner Perkins — West Coast firms funding East Coast application layers. For candidates, that repeat backing is a useful screen: these are the boards that have seen the metrics.
For engineers weighing an offer from this list: the stage determines the trade. Growth-tier equity is safer but priced; emerging-tier equity is where the asymmetric outcomes live. Calibrate the cash side against the NYC salary bands — well-funded startups here pay at or above market, and an offer meaningfully below it is a signal, not a norm.
Where NYC’s AI startups cluster
Hudson Square & SoHo have become the city’s AI corridor. Google’s St. John’s Terminal campus and Anthropic’s 16-story building at 330 Hudson anchor the district, Flourish is building a ten-story wet lab and data center in SoHo, and Hebbia, Microsoft Research, and OpenAI’s Puck Building office all sit within a few blocks. Startups cluster where the talent already commutes.
Flatiron, Union Square & NoMad hold the densest applied-AI startup blocks — Actively AI on West 21st, Cinder on Madison Avenue, Vendelux on West 30th, Mirage at Union Square — the classic “Silicon Alley” geography, now running on transformers.
The Brooklyn Navy Yard is where New York’s physical AI lives: Nanotronics’ 45,000 sq ft manufacturing facility and Radical AI’s autonomous materials-science lab — one of the few places in the country where AI has a shop floor. Bushwick adds consumer experiments like Zo Computer.
Wall Street & FiDi pull the fintech and security AI startups — Frame Security on Wall Street, Norm Ai in 7 World Trade — close to the customers who buy first.
The full picture — with the big-tech outposts plotted alongside the startups — is on the NYC AI 100 map.
Frequently asked questions
How many AI startups are there in NYC?
We do not publish a count of every AI startup in the city. This page lists the 62 NYC-headquartered AI startups below unicorn scale in our NYC AI 100 dataset: 41 in the growth tier and 21 in the emerging tier. 42 of the 62 carry a latest verified funding figure dated 2025 or 2026.
What are the best-funded AI startups in NYC right now?
Going by the latest verified figure for each company in our dataset, the largest in the growth tier are, by latest verified valuation, K Health ($900M, Jul 2024), Nanotronics ($817M, Mar 2022) and H1 ($750M, Nov 2021); and by total raised where no valuation is public, WorkFusion ($386M raised, Sep 2025), Hyperscience ($299M raised, Dec 2021) and Garner Health ($218M raised, May 2026). In the emerging tier the largest totals raised are Alaffia Health ($73M raised, Feb 2026), SmarterDx ($71M raised, May 2024) and Vendelux ($71M raised, Jul 2026). Each figure carries the date of the announcement it comes from, and an old date means we found nothing newer that we could verify.
Are NYC AI startups hiring?
On November 14, 2026, the NYC AI Hiring Index counted 1,487 open roles at the 47 New York AI companies whose job boards we read each morning, 782 of them in New York. That count covers companies of every size in the index, not only the startups on this page. Our free jobs index reads the public job boards of 25 of the 62 startups listed here and links every role to the employer's own application page.
Which NYC neighborhoods do AI startups cluster in?
Hudson Square and SoHo have become the AI corridor — Flourish is building a ten-story lab in SoHo, and Google and Anthropic anchor Hudson Square. The Flatiron and Union Square blocks hold much of the applied-AI startup density, while the Brooklyn Navy Yard hosts the hardware-adjacent labs like Nanotronics and Radical AI.
How is this list different from the NYC AI 100?
The NYC AI 100 is the full ranked map of New York AI, anchored by the $10B+ giants. This page is the slice founders, candidates, and investors usually mean by "startups": companies below unicorn scale, mostly Series A–C, where the equity is still early and the trajectory is still being written. Every company here also appears in the 100 — same verified dataset, different lens.