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This quarter, the Partnership Fund marked a defining moment for New York City’s life sciences sector: Johnson & Johnson’s acquisition of Intra-Cellular Therapies for $14.6 billion, the city’s first major life sciences exit and a milestone that highlights the tremendous progress we’ve made in building a vibrant ecosystem to support groundbreaking biomedical innovation.

Intra-Cellular Therapies, a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of treatments for central nervous system disorders, was the Partnership Fund’s first direct investment in life sciences back in 2006. Our early support helped commercialize Nobel Prize-winning research from Dr. Paul Greengard’s lab at Rockefeller University, ensuring that this promising science—and its founder, Dr. Sharon Mates—remained rooted in New York City. Nearly two decades later, this success story embodies the Fund’s vision: advancing world class biomedical research born in the city’s top academic institutions, keeping talent anchored in the city, and building a thriving life sciences sector that creates lasting economic impact.

As we continue to invest in New York’s life sciences future and foster the growth of other industries in the city, we look forward to identifying and supporting the next generation of transformative companies. Congratulations to Sharon and the entire Intra-Cellular Therapies team—we're excited to see you make a positive impact on an even greater scale.

In the meantime, read on to see what we, our portfolio companies, and our innovation labs have accomplished recently.

- Maria Gotsch, President & CEO, Partnership Fund for New York City

Recent investments

Recycle Track Systems

Recycle Track Systems is a registered waste broker that offers custom waste management and recycling solutions and data analytics to commercial and municipal customers. The Fund completed a follow-on investment in RTS to support their next wave of innovation, expanding its AI-driven solutions to accelerate the transition to a cleaner, more sustainable future.

SEEQC

The Fund provided additional funding to support SEEQC’s mission to develop a scalable, enterprise-grade quantum computing platform. The new funding will help accelerate the commercial rollout if its chips and improve their capabilities to solve real world problems with partners like NVIDIA.

BforeAI

A FinTech Innovation Lab alumni, BforeAI is a pioneer in predictive cybersecurity, and the Fund participated in BforeAI’s Series B fundraise in January 2025. Our investment supports the company’s market expansion in the utilities and healthcare sectors.

Portfolio companies in the news

• BRP Companies Co-Founder and Managing Partner Meredith Marshall was recognized in City & State NY’s 2024 Power of Diversity: Black 100 list highlighting Black leaders who are standing out in the spheres of government, business, nonprofits, organized labor, health care, law, advocacy and academia.

• Kelvin was named a finalist for the 2025 Ivory Prize, which recognizes some of the most exciting innovations shaping the U.S. housing landscape.

• LeapXpert secured $20 million as part of a Series B to continue scaling its communication platform globally.

• BforeAI secured $10 million as part of their Series B round to accelerate growth into new markets.

• It’s Electric was named as a Top Four Startup Shaping 2025 by Forbes, and opened their very first community-requested charger in Boston.

Updates from our innovation labs

Our three public sector innovation labs—the Transit Tech Lab, Environmental Tech Lab, and Buildings Tech Lab—offer entrepreneurs worldwide an expedited path to testing their technologies with some of the largest, most complex public sector agencies in the New York region.

Transit Tech Lab

Applications are currently under review for the 2025 challenges:

• Inspection & Maintenance: How can we digitize manual inspections and optimize maintenance processes?

• Ridership Improvement: How can we accurately measure, capture, and improve paid ridership and travel demand data to optimize transit schedules and communicate effectively?

13 companies that were selected to participate in last year’s program will continue to work with our regional transportation agency partners in larger-scale pilots to demonstrate how their technology can improve transportation and deliver essential services more effectively.

Environmental Tech Lab

After reviewing 108 applications from across the world, six innovative companies have been selected to collaborate with the NYC Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) on proof-of-concept projects.

During the proof-of-concept phase, the six selected companies worked closely with DEP to solve their biggest challenges across two key focus areas:

• Resilience: How can DEP enhance climate resiliency goals including carbon reduction actions, compliance initiatives, flooding mitigations, and water conservation strategies?

• Data Management & Governance: How can DEP integrate and analyze disparate data sets to drive business strategies, deliver capital construction projects, optimize critical data models, and better protect people & infrastructure?

Proof-of-concept results will be released later in April — stay tuned!

Buildings Tech Lab

Eight innovative tech companies have been selected to collaborate with the New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) on “proof of concept” projects. These companies were selected from a pool of over 90 applicants after a review process driven by 28 senior DOB staff.

Current challenges

• Process Management: How can we digitize manual inspections and optimize maintenance processes?

• Data Utilization: How can NYC Department of Buildings better utilize existing data to automate operations and increase staff capacity?