Published:
Aug 29, 2026
Author:
Sarah Parsons Wolter
Share:
New York now has more tech workers than the Bay Area, 394,300 to 375,730, per CBRE's Scoring Tech Talent report, the commercial real estate giant's annual census of where North America's tech workers actually work. Thirteen years of asking that question, and the Bay Area always won. Not this year. New York's tech workforce grew by 30,640 people since 2022, while the Bay Area's shrank by 23,900, and Wall Street hired an awful lot of that itself, loudly, like it had something to prove.
Yet, only about 34% of New York's tech talent works inside an actual tech company, compared with 61% in the Bay Area. The rest sit inside banks, insurers, and other giants, building fraud models, pricing engines, and automation tools in-house rather than buying them off the shelf. The Bay Area's tech workforce is still concentrated in tech companies themselves. New York's is spread across whatever industry happened to need the work done.
None of this means New York out-invented anyone. The Bay Area still has more AI specialists in raw numbers and still tops CBRE's own weighted index. What New York did was hire the technology the moment it became useful, inside the one industry with enough scale to absorb all of it at once. The Bay Area spent a decade training AI like a promising intern, but New York gave it a full-time offer, a corner desk, and a P&L by Monday.
Portfolio News
Simetrik introduces AI agent that moves financial control from detection to execution - Simetrik's AI agent investigates financial discrepancies and executes defined financial-control actions using more than 110 deterministic functions with auditability and human oversight. Read more
NYDIG sells institutional trading business to BitGo as crypto trading rebounds - The acquisition enables BitGo to add derivatives, structured products, financing and other capital-markets services; about 30 NYDIG employees and 250 institutional client relationships are expected to join BitGo. Read more
Octane makes two key appointments to sales leadership team - David Carlsen and Steve Daum are appointed as SVPs of Sales to drive dealer sales growth and strengthen the partner experience. Read more
Flutterwave partners with Convera to enable students to pay school fees - The global tie-up enables Convera to expand higher-education tuition payment options for African students paying school fees at overseas institutions. Read more
Centrifuge reports 300% growth in tokenized assets to nearly $4B - Tokenized assets on its infrastructure grew from $12m to nearly $4b, with more than $1.8b in TVL and 1,768 tokenized assets. Read more
The Great Rehire
New York added 30,640 tech workers in 3 years, surpassing San Francisco as AI hiring surges - New York passed the Bay Area in tech-talent headcount for the first time in CBRE's 13-year Scoring Tech Talent report, driven largely by Wall Street's AI hiring, though the Bay Area still leads CBRE's broader quality index and has far more AI specialists overall. Read more
Industry News
AI’s two-minute home refinancings menace mortgage securities - Faster turnaround could double the percentage of eligible homeowners who refinance to perhaps 60%, according to a report from Morgan Stanley. While this would be a boon for lenders and borrowers, it might erode returns for mortgage bond investors. Read more
Revolut rolls out euro stablecoin - EURR has been designed under the MiCA regulatory regime, and the firm says it plans to develop additional currency-denominated stablecoins through separate regulatory pathways. Read more
Private equity is deploying an army of AI wonks to embed in the firms they back - Blackstone and Hellman & Friedman have formed a roughly 160-person team of AI experts to deploy at businesses, starting with their own portfolio companies. Read more
Advent and Stripe abandon $50b pursuit of PayPal - The Wall Street Journal reported this month that PayPal had found Advent and Stripe’s initial bid insufficient and the two sides were negotiating a potential higher price. Read more
Visa, Mastercard launch international card payments in Syria after US lifts terrorism designation - The near-simultaneous moves offer one of the clearest signs yet of Syria's accelerating reintegration into the global financial system after decades of sanctions and isolation. Read more
German broker Scalable opens investment platform to major AI chatbots - Using natural language prompts, clients can get their agents to carry out a host of tasks, from trading to creating savings plans, watchlists and price alerts. Read more
US state bankers associations to build industry-owned blockchain network - Representing more than 3200 banks with $21.8 trillion in assets, the associations are teaming up to offer services such as smart payment tools, tokenised deposits, stablecoins and automated settlement. Read more
Britain plans new Bank of England objective to support payments innovation - The "secondary objective" will support innovation in payment systems and digital money such as stablecoins, while maintaining financial stability as the central bank's primary responsibility. Read more
Select Financings
Beldex - Victoria based privacy-focused blockchain infrastructure platform for Web3 and AI applications raised $8m in new funding led by Sigma Capital. Read more
Fasset - Los Angeles based stablecoin-powered digital banking platform raised $68m in Series C funding led by SBI Group. Read more
Helcim - Calgary based payments processor for small and medium-sized businesses raised C$53m in Series C funding led by BDC's Growth Venture Fund. Read more
Hivemind - New York based tokenization infrastructure firm for traditional and digital assets raised $17m in new funding led by M&G Investments. Read more
Investly - Warsaw based non-custodial digital asset investment platform for wealth managers and financial advisors raised 4.2m PLN in Seed funding led by VO2 Ventures. Read more
Itoflow - London based AI platform that helps investment teams scale portfolio research and management raised $2.5m in pre-Seed funding led by Balderton Capital. Read more
Kazimi - Berlin based mobile cybersecurity platform that verifies first-party data and detects bot activity for app developers raised €2.2m in pre-Seed funding led by Market One Capital. Read more
Multiplier - New York based AI agent platform for fundamental equity hedge funds raised $6m in Seed funding led by Lux Capital. Read more
Neno - Amsterdam based AI-native financial services platform that automates accounting and tax administration for SMEs raised €6.6m in Seed funding led by AlleyCorp. Read more
NeoSoul - Singapore based AI agent trading infrastructure platform raised $11m in pre Series A funding from MH Ventures, Amber Group, and ArkStream Capital. Read more
Noggin HQ - Newcastle based alternative credit scoring platform raised £2.3m in Seed funding led by Blackfinch Ventures. Read more
Repodo - Copenhagen based AI-native audit firm that automates data collection and analysis for audits raised €8.2m in pre-Seed funding led by Hedosophia and Seed Capital. Read more
Rezolv - Mumbai based AI-native lending technology platform that automates borrower collections raised $12.5m in Series A funding led by Norwest. Read more
RockRose Risk - Napa based wildfire risk insurance and mitigation platform for property owners raised $12.5m in Series A funding co-led by Crosslink Capital and Congruent Ventures. Read more
Standard Metrics - San Francisco based AI-driven portfolio management platform for venture capital and private equity firms raised $20m in Series B funding led by 8VC. Read more
FinTech Collective Newsletter
Curated News with Context
Delivered every Monday, the weekly newsletter, produced by our team, provides a tightly edited rundown of global fintech news, along with a bit of our original analysis.