About us
Startup Grind is the largest independent startup community, actively educating, inspiring, and connecting entrepreneurs globally.
The cornerstone of our global community are monthly events featuring successful local founders, innovators, educators and investors who share lessons learned on the road to building great companies.
Founded in Silicon Valley, Startup Grind has helped millions of entrepreneurs build their businesses, connect with strategic partners, and secure funding.
- Start a Chapter in your city! - http://www.startupgrind.com/start
- Sponsor an event! - https://www.startupgrind.com/sponsor
- Have a Startup? your startup & meet investors at a regional conference through our Startup Program - http://bit.ly/sg_meetup_startup_first
Upcoming events
3
Tech Happy Hour by Startup Grind
Time Out Market Union Square, 124 East 14th Street, New York, NY, USThis is the monthly Startup Grind tech mixer. It's a low-key way to connect with the NYC tech and startup community to discover shared interests, explore areas for collaboration, and find your next co-founder or key hire.
Join us for a casual happy hour to build real relationships and make friends, not just contacts. No pitches. No presentations. No agenda.
This happy hour is for:
- Startup Founders & Employees
- Technologists, Developers & Tech Workers
- Product Managers & Designers
- Investors, VCs, Advisors & Mentors
- Anyone curious about the NYC tech scene
Agenda:- 5:00 PM: Happy Hour starts. Come and go as you please.
We're at the new Time Out Market at Union Square. It features a selection of the city's best food and drink together under one roof, offering a wide variety of options to choose from throughout the event.Look for Startup Grind table signs toward the back near the outdoor terrace.
28 attendees
The AI Briefing by Startup Grind - Agentic Governance
Civic Hall, 124 East 14th Street, New York, NY, US👉 CLICK HERE TO RSVP FOR FREE 👈
The AI Briefing is a recurring AI deep-dive for decision-makers.
Each month, we select one high-signal industry report, circulate it in advance, and meet to cut through the noise.📜 This Month's Source: The AI Agent Governance Gap: What CISOs Need Now (Cloud Security Alliance AI Safety Initiative – Apr 2026)
Gartner projects that 40% of enterprise applications will embed task-specific AI agents by the end of 2026, up from less than 5% in 2025. However, it's becoming clear that governance hasn't kept pace with that curve.
A 2026 survey of CISOs and CIOs at large enterprises found that 92% of them lack full visibility into their own AI agent identities. 95% doubt they could detect or contain a compromised agent if one turned up.
That leaves a real gap for enterprises deploying agents today.
No enforceable standard exists yet, and the frameworks most organizations already lean on (NIST AI RMF, ISO 42001, the EU AI Act) were built for AI that responds to a prompt, not for AI that plans and takes action across outside systems on its own.
🏔️ The Mission: Who owns the agent when it acts?
- This session is co-hosted with Lazy 8 AI, an engineering collective focused on the transition from manual coding to managing autonomous AI systems.
- We'll use the report's own gaps, especially around identity and incident response, as the anchor for a broader conversation: what readiness actually looks like when the standards bodies are still a year or more behind the deployments.
📊 The Format:
- We'll open with the numbers: 92% of CISOs and CIOs blind to their own agent identities, and a standards timeline that leaves them on their own well into 2026.
- The room debates the report's own recommendations: agent inventories, least-privilege credentials, agent-specific incident response. What's realistic for a team that's already stretched, and what's closer to theater.
🤝 Who Should Attend:
- Enterprise Executives: Understand the exposure your organization is carrying right now, before a standard exists to measure against, and what following best practice will need to mean when a regulator or a board comes knocking.
- Product, Data, and Operations Leads: Compare notes on what you're actually doing today to track agent identity, permissions, and incident response, and where the gap between what leadership assumes and what's built is widest.
- Founders & Builders: See where the governance tooling gap is actually a product opportunity, and why the report's own commercial incentives should make you skeptical of framework adoption as the automatic answer.
📬 The Prep: This is a working session. Review the report here. Bring your perspective.
👉 CLICK HERE TO RSVP FOR FREE 👈
2 attendees
The Startup Pitch: Demo Showcase by Startup Grind
The Yard: Herald Square, 106 West 32nd Street, New York, NY, US🚨 CLICK HERE to RSVP 👈
It's time to go beyond the deck and see the best live tech from New York's emerging startups.
Welcome to a pitch event with a twist. We skip the fluff and focus on what matters: a live look at real products.
This pitch & demo showcase gives you a first look at new technology from startups that are actively building and shipping product — sometimes even before VCs have seen them!
🚨 CLICK HERE to RSVP 👈
The format is fast-paced and interactive. After each demo, the floor is open for questions, ideas, and honest feedback from the community.
We welcome investors who want an unfiltered look at new technology and early-stage teams.- 📅 Date: Thursday, August 20th
- 🕓 Time: 5:30 PM - 7:30 PM
- 📍 Venue: The Yard: Herald Square
- 🎫 Tickets: Only $5 (includes happy hour refreshments)
- 📑 Founders: Sign up here to apply to pitch at an upcoming event
🚨 CLICK HERE to RSVP 👈
WHO SHOULD ATTEND
- Startups ready to demo a real product and get honest feedback
- Engineers, PMs, and designers who love seeing new tech in action
- Investors looking for a ground-floor, early look at local startups
- Anyone in the NYC tech scene who wants to connect with and support the people building things
AGENDA
- 5:30 PM: Doors Open & Networking
- 6:00 PM: Startup Pitches & Demos with Audience Q&A
- 7:00 PM: Meet the Presenting Startups
PITCH FORMAT
- Pitch & Demo - 6 minutes
- Audience Q&A - 4 minutes
- Pitch deck AND product demo are required
🚨 CLICK HERE to RSVP 👈
2 attendees
Past events
239
Group links
Members
13,221
