COVID-19: NYC Restart and Rebuild

Our Response to the Pandemic

The Partnership Fund is committed to the recovery of the city’s economy.  We have been working to deliver key resources to New York’s hard-hit small business community and to stimulate new economic activity and job growth by investing in up-and-coming sectors, such as life sciences and quantum computing.

New Investments: Economic Recovery

 

NYCSBRN-image

To accelerate small business recovery and strengthen the city’s economy, the Partnership Fund joined the Peter G. Peterson FoundationNew York City Economic Development Corporation and the five borough Chambers of Commerce to launch the NYC Small Business Resource Network (NYCSBRN) in September 2020.

The NYCSBRN is a one-stop-shop to help tackle mounting barriers to economic recovery with a specific focus on minority-, women- and immigrant-owned businesses. The initiative, funded by a $2.8 million grant from the Peterson Foundation and additional in-kind support, gives neighborhood storefronts and other small enterprises personalized guidance and resources to help to sustain their businesses. The Fund is investing up to $1 million to fund the administrative costs of operating this Resource Network.

As of August 2021, the Small Business Resource Network has reached approximately 20,000 small businesses across the five boroughs and connected roughly a third of them to resources, of which 80% are minority- or women-owned and 60% are in low-income neighborhoods.
 

 

 clear logoCLEAR is a biometric identification platform offering a secure health tracking solution to get New York City employees back to work safely.  In response to the pandemic, CLEAR launched “Health Pass” to create a touchless, common health identity platform that connects users’ verified identity with their health insights, such as COVID-19 related results and records.

In 2020, the Partnership Fund invested in CLEAR as a part of a broader initiative to bring New York City employees back to work during the COVID-19 pandemic and to support the revival of the local economy.

 

Emerging Sectors

Life Sciences

With unprecedented amounts of venture capital investment and new accelerator programs like IndieBio coming to New York, public and private sector efforts to grow life sciences are beginning to take root. The Partnership Fund has worked closely with the public sector to support New York’s budding life sciences ecosystem. Over the past decade, we have committed over $50 million to support the growth of commercial life sciences in New York.

Learn more

Quantum Computing

Quantum computing has the potential to be a major engine of economic growth in New York. An October 2020 report by Accenture Research shows that quantum computing is expected to produce $332 billion in GDP and create 95,000 jobs in New York over the next ten years.

The Partnership Fund made its first investment in this burgeoning field into Seeqc, a hardware company based in Brooklyn that combines quantum processors with classical computers.

Watch a discussion with Maria Gotsch, President and CEO of the Partnership Fund for New York City, and Marc Carrel-Billiard, Accenture’s Global Lead of Technology Innovation and Accenture Labs, as they take a deeper dive into the promise of quantum for New York, the potential impact of that expansion on businesses and the implications for cybersecurity and workforce development.