Newlab

New Climate Futures returns to Brooklyn on September 24, 2026. During the height of New York Climate Week, Newlab will bring together more than 60 critical technology startups alongside investors, industry leaders, manufacturers, policymakers, and partners working to commercialize critical climate technologies. The biggest barriers to bringing climate technologies to market emerge the moment they leave the lab. Every startup has to find a durable, scalable commercial market regardless of shifting policy, requiring every part of the ecosystem to work together to reach market. New Climate Futures is about bringing that ecosystem together. Join us on September 24 to experience these technologies in-person, hear from founders actively deploying, and connect with the leaders continuing to champion climate as a central challenge for our future. Purchase tickets here: https://lnkd.in/eGrkeHfs

Rechargeable batteries transformed the streets of New York City with electric cars, bikes, and scooters. Now Popwheels, led by co-founders Baruch Herzfeld and David Hammer, is bringing that transformation to the city’s food carts. There are 20,500 food carts across New York City that are still powered by diesel generators: loud grumbling engines that collectively spew 120,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide each year. During last fall’s New Climate Futures at Newlab, Popwheels adapted their swappable charging batteries to power an inverter for the event’s outdoor food carts, demonstrating how they could be powered by the Popwheels swappable battery network. Now they’re partnering with the NYC Mayor's Office of Climate & Environmental Justice in their inaugural Clean Powered Carts Challenge. Ten food carts in Flushing Meadow Corona Park, Queens, are participating in a six-month pilot which aims to improve air quality, reduce operating costs for vendors, and make progress towards the city’s aggressive sustainability goals. After successful launch through Newlab’s New York City Department of Transportation pilots, Popwheels is rapidly scaling the first FDNY-approved outdoor battery-swapping locations throughout the boroughs, powering delivery bikes, helping balancing the grid, and now powering local businesses serving food across New York City. It's a reminder that commercialization happens through real-world deployment, with founders, cities, and industry working together to bring critical technology into everyday use. Read more about Baruch and David’s story now, and sign up to the New/Letter for more.

Birdstop relocated its manufacturing operations from Alabama to Detroit with a simple thesis: build American drones the way America builds cars. Founded by CEO Keith Miao, the company manufactures autonomous drone systems for critical infrastructure operators: supporting power plants, water treatment facilities, reservoirs, energy sites, and freight corridors with the tools to inspect, monitor, and operate essential assets. The move to Detroit was spurred by the city’s manufacturing expertise, supply chains, talent, and industrial capabilities that transformed the automobile into a scalable industry. As mobility expands beyond the road into low-altitude airspace, that same industrial foundation is helping accelerate a new generation of autonomous systems. Hear how Birdstop is rethinking American drone manufacturing from Keith Miao, Founder and CEO, in the video below. If you're building the next generation of mobility critical technologies, learn more about how to join Newlab here: https://lnkd.in/easnJ-nm

The Global Positioning System (GPS) has become foundational infrastructure, enabling everything from everyday navigation to global logistics. But because GPS relies on radio signals transmitted by satellites more than 12,000 miles above Earth, those signals can be jammed, spoofed, or degraded, creating critical challenges for defense systems and autonomous vehicles alike. General Orbit is taking a different approach. Instead of relying solely on satellites, the company determines position by reading naturally occurring magnetic signatures in the Earth's crust. The result is a complementary positioning technology that continues to work in environments where GPS struggles: including underground, underwater, inside tunnels, and in contested environments. The technology is now being applied across defense, autonomy, and critical infrastructure to help vehicles and systems navigate with greater confidence when reliability matters most. Hear how General Orbit is rethinking positioning beyond GPS from Parker Boundy, Co-Founder and CEO, in the video below.

Fungi cleaning wastewater. Robots built for agricultural purposes. Textiles crafted from cocoa plant waste. These were just a few of the critical technologies presented at Newlab's 2026 Founder Fellowship Pitch Day. The future of industry will be built by founders solving real-world challenges across materials, biotechnology, manufacturing, robotics, and AI. Last Tuesday, the fifth cohort of Newlab’s Founder Fellowship shared technologies designed to strengthen the systems our economy depends on, with a community of investors, industry leaders, and partners gathered to experience what's next. Hosted in partnership with New York City Economic Development Corporation, Bank of America, and Gunderson Dettmer, Pitch Day marked an important milestone for these founders as they move from breakthrough ideas toward commercialization. Newlab’s fifth cohort of Founder Fellows are proof that the next generation of industry leaders are already hard at work.

Critical minerals are essential to the global energy transition, but demand is outpacing supply. Through our partnership with Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources, National Industrial Development and Logistics Program (NIDLP), Maaden, ESNAD | إسـنـاد, Saudi Geological Survey, and new partners Ajlan & Bros Mining and Maaden Barrick Copper Company, Newlab is helping build a mining innovation ecosystem that brings leading startups into real-world industrial deployments. We recently hosted Mining Innovation Studio: Partnering for Impact in Riyadh to highlight the early results of the startup cohort participating in the Mining Innovation Studio. Learn more about the technologies deployed in the program in the article below.

For years, the difficulty of building, deploying, and scaling hardware has slowed down critical technology advancements that foundational industries urgently need. Eliot Horowitz and his team at Viam are working to make it simpler. They built a universal software platform for robotics that works across diverse hardware or software architecture, making prototyping a machine more approachable for software and hardware engineers alike. From single robot arm configurations to fleets of thousands of humanoids, quadrupeds, or smart machines, Viam compresses development timelines from years to days, allowing software engineers to build in the physical world without the legacy friction. At Critical Mass Volume 5 during NY TECH WEEK by a16z, we celebrated Eliot alongside other visionary founders who are commercializing the critical technologies required to redefine our industrial economy, fix our infrastructure, and power the world around us. Sign up to join us for our next events across Newlab locations: https://lnkd.in/gAS9hvMd

Reindustrialize is no longer just a narrative. Three years ago, founders made their pitches at the first summit hosted at Newlab & Michigan Central, now they are raising hundreds of millions of dollars and standing up factories around the country. For the third year, Newlab hosted the official closing party in Detroit with latest volume of CRITICAL MASS. The evening brought together the founders, investors, policymakers, and industry leaders charting the next chapter of critical technology deployment across the state, the country, and the world. Thank you to all of the startups for displaying and investing your time and technology: AmHyTech, Birdstop, Celadyne Technologies, Conduit, CREW Carbon, Diode Computers, Inc., General Orbit, Grounded, Heartland Industries, Icarus Robotics, Kyber Labs, Noble Gas Systems, NOX METALS, Peer Robotics, Sharrow Marine, Variant Security, Voltaic Marine, Volumes, Yank Technologies, Inc. This work takes time. It requires infrastructure, commercial partners, and sustained investment. But the outcomes are durable. Strong industrial ecosystems are built through long-term collaboration, creating the foundations for economic growth that can endure well beyond any technology cycle. The paradigm is shifting and all are welcome who are willing to put in the work. Stay ahead of the next chapter of critical technology deployment by signing up for the New/Letter: https://lnkd.in/ezkhZVjh

Control panels keep the world running, from fulfillment centers to water treatment facilities, but their tedious design & custom production can make them the bottlenecks for an entire project. Jamie Niu Serota and her team at Podium Automation are rebuilding how control panels are delivered through AI-driven design and advanced production facilities. They compress timelines from months to days, helping their customers build critical infrastructure and keep essential industries running. Critical Mass, Volume 5 during New York TECH WEEK by a16z, we celebrated Jamie alongside other founders who are commercializing the critical technologies that quietly power the world around us. Sign up to join us for our next events across Newlab: https://lnkd.in/gAS9hvMd

Ocean conservation is about more than protecting marine ecosystems. It also requires supporting the coastal communities, industries, and infrastructure connected to them. Lasting progress depends on solutions that deliver measurable conservation outcomes alongside economic and operational value. At the Philanthropy Asia Alliance Summit, Newlab, The Nature Conservancy Asia Pacific, and Yayasan Konservasi Alam Nusantara hosted a discussion between conservation leaders, technology innovators, philanthropic stakeholders, and ecosystem partners to explore how emerging technologies can accelerate ocean conservation outcomes through cross-sector collaboration. The discussion highlighted the startups selected for the inaugural Global Ocean Innovation Challenge cohort: HavocAI, blueOASIS, and Blurgs AI. Each company represents a different approach to advancing ocean resilience, but the conversation made one thing clear: technology alone is not enough. Durable outcomes depend on community trust, policy alignment, and financing models that support long-term deployment at scale.