brooklyn
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PENSA and the art of removing the awkward bit
A hospital curtain, a razor, an inflatable dog kennel. The Brooklyn design firm finds its opportunities where everyday objects make people work too hard.
Vermeer taught drones to frame a shot. Then to find their way.
A Hollywood drone business became a supplier of GPS-free navigation. The revealing part is how a tool for getting the picture right found a customer who needed to get the aircraft home.
Fridge No More delivered in 15 minutes. Survival took longer.
Free delivery, no minimum order, and a warehouse around the corner: Fridge No More made forgetting the milk remarkably painless. Then the money stopped arriving.
Easy Aerial’s bright idea: keep the drone on a leash
Easy Aerial builds autonomous drones that can draw power through a tether, launch from a box, and watch over sites or moving vehicles. Its wager is that security teams often need a longer look more than a longer flight.
Looking Glass put depth on a screen. Then it made the work disappear.
A Brooklyn display company spent years teaching screens to show several sides of the same object. Its next bet is more practical: let people make a little spectacle with the video tools they already know.
The Name Went Back. The Griffin Stayed.
Gretel makes identities built to travel from a museum wall to a phone screen. In Philadelphia, its most revealing design lesson arrived after the launch.
What Else makes brands earn their keep
A Brooklyn design studio connects the logo to the work that follows: packaging, websites, templates, and the daily business of being useful. Its projects run from sparkling verjus to fraud protection.
Attack Capital
Attack Capital is a New York based, Y Combinator alumni founded AI venture studio and seed-stage fund. It builds vertical AI companies from scratch on a 30-day build cycle - spinning out products like OpenMic (AI phone agents), PowerDialer, and HealOS - while also giving accredited investors direct, diversified access to vetted YC startups. Founded by Thiel Fellow Kaushik Tiwari and Saumik Tiwari, it pairs a company factory with a fund.
Bandit Running
Bandit Running is a Brooklyn-born, community-first performance running brand founded in 2020 by Tim and Nick West with designer Ardith Singh. Starting with a single pair of cushioned running socks packed by hand, Bandit grew through New York run clubs into a full head-to-toe running apparel line - shorts, tights, singlets, sports bras, socks and lifestyle wear - sold direct-to-consumer. The brand is known for co-designing product with its running community, high social engagement, and The Unsponsored Project, which backs professional runners without shoe deals. Bandit raised a $14.25M Series A in 2023.
Mike's Hot Honey
Mike's Hot Honey is a Brooklyn-based food brand that makes honey infused with chili peppers - a sweet-and-spicy condiment for pizza, fried chicken, cheese and more. Founded by Mike Kurtz in 2010 after he discovered chili-infused honey at a Brazilian pizzeria, the company pioneered the hot honey category in the United States and now sells through more than 30,000 retail locations and 3,000-plus restaurants. Led by CEO Matt Beaton since 2015, it has grown from a one-man operation at Paulie Gee's pizzeria into a nationally distributed brand with an estimated $40 million in annual revenue.
Vigilante Plumbing, Heating and Air Conditioning
Vigilante Plumbing, Heating and Air Conditioning is a family-owned Brooklyn contractor that has served New York City since 1927. Now in its third and fourth generation under the Vigilante family, the company handles residential and commercial plumbing, heating, air conditioning, drain and sewer work, and fire-protection systems across the five boroughs, built on flat-rate pricing, licensed master plumbers, and background-checked technicians.
Tailored Industry
Tailored Industry is a Brooklyn-based on-demand knitwear manufacturer that pairs industrial 3D 'wholegarment' knitting machines with a proprietary software platform. It lets fashion brands of any size produce seamless sweaters and knit staples with zero minimums and near-zero waste, matching supply to actual demand instead of guessing seasons in advance.
BEAT THE BOMB
BEAT THE BOMB is an immersive social entertainment company that turns teamwork into a real-life video game. Squads of four to six players suit up in hazmat gear and battle through a series of high-tech, motion- and touch-driven game rooms - dodging lasers, cracking codes, and racing a Bomb Clock. Fail the final mission and you get blasted with paint, foam, or slime. Founded in Brooklyn in 2017 by former Tough Mudder executive Alex Patterson, the company has grown into a national chain backed by $22M in venture funding, hosting corporate outings, school groups, and birthday parties across multiple U.S. cities.
Prose
Prose is a New York-based beauty-tech company that makes custom haircare and skincare to order. An online consultation feeds a proprietary AI engine that blends from a library of natural ingredients into formulas tailored to each customer's hair, scalp, skin, lifestyle, and even local climate. Founded in 2017 by ex-L'Oreal and Phyto executives, Prose is a Certified B Corporation, a Public Benefit Corporation, and a carbon-neutral brand that has produced millions of bespoke products and reached profitability while expanding into skincare and licensing its technology stack, Singular.