brooklyn-startup
(8)
Kintra Fibers
Kintra Fibers is a Brooklyn-based materials science company developing a bio-based, biodegradable alternative to conventional polyester. Built on polybutylene succinate (PBS) derived from plant sugars rather than fossil fuels, Kintra's yarn performs like standard polyester and runs on existing melt-spinning equipment, but composts in controlled conditions and sheds far less persistent microplastic. Founded in 2018 by Billy McCall and Alissa Baier-Lentz, the H&M Group-backed company has raised roughly $10M total and is piloting its fiber with brands including Inditex, BESTSELLER, Reformation and PANGAIA.
Near Space Labs
Near Space Labs is a Brooklyn-based earth-imaging company that flies small autonomous robots called Swift into the stratosphere on helium balloons to capture 7-centimeter-resolution imagery of the ground below. Founded in 2017, it delivers frequent, analysis-ready aerial data to property and casualty insurers, governments, utilities and environmental groups at a fraction of the cost of traditional planes or satellites, positioning balloon-borne imaging as a scalable, low-emission alternative for monitoring cities, infrastructure and disasters.
Rema Matevosyan
Rema (Hripsime) Matevosyan is the co-founder and CEO of Near Space Labs, a Brooklyn-based company that flies helium-lifted robotic aircraft called Swift into the stratosphere to photograph the Earth at 7-centimeter resolution. Born and educated in Armenia, trained as an applied mathematician in Moscow, she left a PhD program two weeks into an entrepreneurship class to build what she calls her own little space program. In April 2025 the company closed a $20M Series B led by Bold Capital Partners, bringing total funding above $40M, with insurance carriers as anchor customers using the imagery to model wildfire and hurricane damage.
CLIP
CLIP is a Brooklyn-based clean mobility company that makes a portable, tool-free device that clips onto a regular bicycle's front fork and turns it into an e-bike in seconds. Founded in 2018 by Som Ray and Clement de Alcala, the friction-drive motor weighs under 10 pounds, fits in a backpack, and provides pedal assistance up to 15 mph - positioning itself as a far cheaper, lighter alternative to buying a full e-bike. The company sells to consumers starting at $499 and is pushing a lower-cost model, BOLT, aimed at bike-share fleets and emerging markets.
Openigloo
Openigloo is a New York-based rental platform that brings transparency to the housing market by letting tenants read and write anonymous, crowdsourced reviews of landlords and buildings, cross-referenced with public city data on violations, litigation and bedbug reports. Founded in 2020 by Allia Mohamed and Srujan Routhu, the app helps renters find verified, highly-rated apartments and check whether units are rent-stabilized, and has expanded into landlord-facing leasing tools under the IglooIQ brand.
Bill Grinstead
Bill Grinstead is the co-founder and CEO of Orenda, a Brooklyn-based renewable energy company building standalone battery storage that keeps New York City's overloaded grid from buckling. A former finance professional who cut his teeth at Susquehanna International Group and the $7B private equity firm Marlin Equity Partners, Grinstead traded markets for megawatts in 2020. Under his lead, Orenda has grown into one of the largest energy storage developers in downstate New York, claiming roughly a 34% share of the NYC storage market and a development pipeline measured in the hundreds of megawatts, while handling everything from site origination and permitting to construction and live operations.
Caroline Vanderlip
Caroline Vanderlip is the founder and CEO of Re:Dish, a Brooklyn-based reusable foodware company that swaps single-use containers for durable, USA-made ones, then collects, sterilizes, and redistributes up to 75,000 items a day from an automated industrial warewashing plant. After three decades launching businesses inside NBC, CNBC, AT&T, and her own publishing-tech ventures, she traded media for dishwashing in her sixties, betting that the most radical thing a company can do is wash its own plates and use them again.
Som Ray
Som Ray is the co-founder and CEO of CLIP, a Brooklyn clean-mobility company that builds the world's first no-tools, plug-and-play device that snaps onto a regular bicycle's front wheel and turns it into an e-bike in seconds. Trained as an architect in New Delhi and New York and shaped by a stint in MIT Media Lab's Smart Cities group, Ray is a design technologist and serial entrepreneur recognized by MIT Technology Review's TR35 for an ultra-low-cost wheelchair. He started CLIP in 2018 after a steep Brooklyn hill made his bike commute miserable, and built the company around a simple idea: instead of throwing out the world's dormant bicycles, electrify them.