NYU
70 Washington Square South, New York, NY, 10012, United States
Overview
More than 175 years ago, Albert Gallatin, the distinguished statesman who served as secretary of the treasury under Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, declared his intention to establish "in this immense and fast-growing city ... a system of rational and practical education fitting for all and graciously opened to all." Founded in 1831, New York University is now one of the largest private universities in the United States. Of the more than 3,000 colleges and universities in America, New York University is one of only 60 member institutions of the distinguished Association of American Universities. From a student body of 158 during NYU's very first semester, enrollment has grown to more than 50,000 students at... ... three degree-granting campuses in New York City, Abu Dhabi, and Shanghai, and at study away sites in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North and South America. Today, students come from every state in the union and from 133 foreign countries. The faculty, which initially consisted of fourteen professors and lecturers (among them artist and inventor Samuel F. B. Morse), now totals over 4,500 full-time members whose research and teaching encompasses arts and media; business; law; education; health and medicine; humanities and social sciences; science, technology, engineering, and math; public administration; the ancient world; and continuing professional studies. With more than 2,500 courses offered, the University awards more than 25 different degrees. Although overall the University is large, the individuals schools and colleges are small- to moderate-sized units – each with its own traditions, programs, <a href="https://www.dissertationcorp.co.uk/">dissertation help</a> and faculty – and there are many communities to be found within the NYU community based on interests, activities, and shared experiences. The center of NYU is its New York City campus in the heart of Greenwich Village. One of the most creative and energetic cities in the world, New York City has attracted generations of artists, entrepreneurs, and intellectuals. NYU, in keeping with its founder’s vision, is “in and of the city”: the University – which has no walls and no gates – is deeply intertwined with New York City, drawing inspiration from its vitality.
- Total investments
- 14
- Lead investments
- 1
- Investments · 12mo
- 1
- Active investors
- 8
Sector focus
- Education
- Higher Education
- Journalism
- Online Portals
Investment portfolio
- GigFinesse
Participated · Series A · Jun 2026
Founded in 2019 by Mir Hwang and Ryan Kim and headquartered in Austin, Texas, GigFinesse offers a centralized software platform for live entertainment operations. The product streamlines talent discovery, contracting, scheduling, payments, logistics, and performance management for venues and event organizers. The company powers more than 1,000 events each month. With the $15M Series A announced May 17, 2026, GigFinesse plans to expand its operating layer for the live entertainment industry and replace legacy manual workflows like spreadsheets and text chains used by hospitality venues. The funding brings the company's total capital raised to over $15 million.
- Baton Media
Participated · Equity · Nov 2023
Baton is a music collaboration platform that lets artists, producers, managers, A&Rs and catalog administrators share unreleased music, source new material, collaborate, and track who views and interacts with submitted work. Founded by musician Gabe Warshaw, the company launched a private beta in 2022. The product highlights individual viewers of material and includes an automatic payout system to help ensure creators are properly credited and compensated. Baton is building a blockchain-based decentralized infrastructure to allow creators to upload songs without the risk of IP theft. The company says it has helped connect hundreds of artists and protect the IP of thousands of songs, with clients including DJ Dahi and A&R Sickamore. Baton plans to use new funding to further develop its product, grow its team, roll out new features, and build a mixed-media collaboration and rights-management ecosystem for visual artists, filmmakers and designers.
- Steg AI
Participated · Seed · Aug 2023
Steg.AI develops a matched pair of machine‑learning models that embed and detect nearly invisible, robust watermarks customized to each image. Their approach is designed to survive common transformations such as resizing, compression, screenshots and re‑encoding, and can be scanned from displays or printouts. The team traces its work to a 2019 CVPR paper and years of academic research by co‑founders Eric Wengrowski and Kristin Dana, and the company received Phase I and II SBIR government grants. Use cases the company targets include stock photography, social media, pre‑release movie assets, confidential documents and integrations with digital asset management platforms. Steg.AI has found early traction with customers that value leak prevention, including consumer electronics brands, and is positioning its product as an enterprise SaaS integration. Financially, the company previously raised NSF grants and angel investment totaling $1.2 million and has announced a new seed round.
- Rilla
Participated · Seed · Dec 2022
Rillavoice offers a mobile‑first SaaS that lets field sales reps record conversations, automatically transcribes them, and applies proprietary signal‑processing and natural language processing to surface coaching and revenue‑driving insights. The product targets outside sales across industries such as home services, telecom, solar, pharma, insurance, CPG, payments and retail. Co‑founder Michael Castellanos’s prior work on voice‑based prediction informed the company’s deep‑learning audio expertise. Rillavoice formally began selling in January and in its first year of sales has reached seven‑figure annual recurring revenue and is cash‑flow positive. The company reports ARR growth of 30–50% month over month and says it has “dozens” of customers including Window Nation, Rebath and Duke Energy. Rillavoice plans to use the new capital primarily to grow its headcount, aiming to 5x its current team of 10.
- Wematter
Participated · Seed · Aug 2022
WeMatter (fka SheMatters) is an NYC-based online platform and mobile app designed to support Black women and women of color who experience postpartum comorbidities and mental illness. The product pairs habit-tracking tools with an online/offline community where members serve as role models, attend events, participate in the online community, and access culturally competent resources and certified therapists. Users build healthy habits that can be tracked and openly celebrated through the platform. Led by founder Jade Kearney, the company positions itself where tech and wellness meet to motivate women to define their own paths toward mental wellness. WeMatter closed over $1.5 million in seed funding and named Alexander Packard as board chair and Eric Ries as a board member. The company intends to use the funds to expand operations and business reach and will offer cultural competency certifications over the next two years for Asian American women, Indigenous women, Hispanic women, LGBTQI+, Trans and marginalized heterosexual men.