The Tarform Luna is an electric motorcycle, a concept dreamed up on a napkin more than four years ago by company founder Taras Kravtchouk at Newlab at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. 

"A good environment where we could go from an early prototype to start building the physical bike”, said Kravtchouk of the workplace, adding they plan to start shipping the custom bikes to customers this summer.

What You Need To Know

  • Newlab is a community of experts and innovators applying transformative technology to solve the world's biggest challenges

  • It is based in an old Naval Shipbuilding facility at the Brooklyn Navy Yard

  • Membership fees are based on the amount of space used by a startup company
  • Members have access to studios where they can develop ideas for future products and create sustainable solutions and enterprises

Newlab is a six-year-old home for tech entrepreneurs to build their companies in Brooklyn located inside a massive former Naval Shipbuilding facility. CEO Shaun Stewart says there are more than 170 startups based there.

"We added more than $5 million in prototyping equipment, so 3D printers, textiles, electric benches, everything you need to build early stage product right here in New York City,” said Stewart.

He says the building is coming alive once again after a reduction in occupancy last year as companies moved to working remotely during the pandemic. There are around 175 people working there these days, inching closer to pre-pandemic levels of 200-300.

Some companies there pivoted during the early days of the pandemic to help make COVID-19 related products. That included PPE and in the case of a company called 10XBeta, ventilators. 

CEO Marcel Botha says they partnered with Newlab and Queens-based Boyce Technologies to produce 3,000 units for city hospitals.

"We are now taking this technology and miniaturizing it for an application in ambulances and ERs, because we want all the research that went into getting this done to be captured in a medical device long term,” said Botha.

Jason Krugman is an artist in residence at Newlab, who makes LEDs for public art displays, corporate and residential lobbies. He enjoys the atmosphere at Newlab where it's easy to bounce ideas off of your neighbor.

"You get a lot of stuff by being part of the community in terms of interaction, shared facilities and just overall energy,” said Krugman.