This month, more than halfway through the program that’s building a pipeline of tech leaders who understand how our city runs, the Grid Fellows traveled to Washington, D.C for a deep dive into how policy decisions at every level of government affect New York’s innovation economy and beyond.

In this series, we spotlight the latest NYC-headquartered startups to raise Series A rounds — those crucial early wins that help founders grow their teams, build out their products, and get serious about scale.

In honor of Black History Month, we caught up with seven Black founders from five startups who are shaping the NYC tech ecosystem and innovating to improve health, ecommerce, retail, and more.

We caught up with AlleyCorp’s Susannah Shipton to discuss her career, how her years working in operations have shaped her investment philosophy, her tech stack, and much more.

In February, the Grid Fellowship cohort gathered for a full-scale exploration of the physical, political, and institutional systems that keep one of the world’s largest cities moving.