Congratulations to:
- Securitize, a Miami asset tokenization startup digitizing capital markets with blockchain technology, on raising a $47M round led by BlackRock with participation from Hamilton Lane, ParaFi Capital, and Tradeweb Markets.
- Apaly, a Tampa health care platform that connects direct primary care providers with employees and families of employers, on raising a $2.4M seed round led by 412 Ventures with participation from other unnamed investors.
Making news:
- EVQLV’s eMerge Americas Startup Showcase competition win, with its $520K investment from Medina Ventures, BIP Ventures, and Florida Funders, brings the company two thirds of the way to its seed round funding goal – fueling growth toward building a future of personalized medicine.
- Florida Spaceport System Maritime Intermodal Transportation Study – study by Space Florida, with input from 11 aerospace companies with an estimated 1,128 vessel traffic movements per year in 2033, to determine how Port Canaveral can best meet the increasing maritime needs of the space industry to create more dock space: short term – expansion of the middle turn basin where ULA’s RocketShip currently docks, long-term – expansion of the basin north, through the existing SR 401 road into the Space Force base.
- Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a law that bans cultivating, marketing or selling meat grown from animal cells – Tom Rossmeissl, head of global marketing for GOOD Meat, cultivated meat division of food technology company Eat Just – the ban “sends a terrible message to the investors, scientists, and entrepreneurs that have built America’s global leadership in alternative proteins.”
- Lockheed Martin withdraws its $600M its bid to purchase Boca Raton satellite manufacturer Terran Orbital.
- Miami Downtown Development Authority offering $25K grants to startups to locate in the Miami CBD – flexible to allow startups to either operate out of a coworking space or lease their own dedicated office space.
- Talent war between family offices and Wall Street drives up salaries – “more importantly, family offices are shifting more of their investments into alternatives, which include private equity, venture capital, real estate and hedge funds. According to the J.P. Morgan survey, U.S. family offices have more than 45% of their portfolios in alternatives, compared with 26% for stocks. As they expand their reach into alternatives, they’re increasingly in direct competition with big private equity firms, venture capital firms and deal advisors to bring in top talent.”
- UCF and Orlando’s EA Sports Tiburon Studios partnership – 10% of EA’s 1,000 employees are grads of UCF’s graduate video game development program – Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy (FEIA).
- Winter Spring’s Timeplast, founded in 2014, a pre-revenue developer of water-soluble plastic which can be engineered to last in water from seconds up to years, raised $5M at a $50M valuation to bring its product to market after demonstrating a proof-of-concept in a crowdfunding round on StartEngine in 2023 – now seeking to raise a Reg A round to address the $228.4B European market for reinforced plastics.
- Austin Russell, CEO of Luminar (NASDAQ: LAZR), an Orlando developer of lidar (light detection and ranging) sensors for autonomous vehicles, received $734,499 in total compensation for 2023, down from $94.39M in 2022 – most of which came from stock awards – the board assigned the CEO “moonshot goals”, including $50 per share for its stock, for stock awards that were deliberately difficult to achieve – stock now $1.46.
- Scott Price, CEO of Tampa cybersecurity firm A-LIGN and Tony DiBenedetto, exited founder of Tribridge, invest in Tampa startup Trofeo offering a Microsoft Azure-partnered cloud service for companies seeking support or strategy.
- FAU and UCF teams are two of 8 university teams selected to participate in NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative this summer – will meet at the Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island for a four-day introductory session and then spend seven weeks at the USAF’s University Nanosatellite Program facilities in Albuquerque.
- UF Innovate startups Fire Neural Network, Abilitare, and Digital Twin Marine, all with students or faculty company founders transition into 35 Mules Program for continued growth.
- Florida Tech’s Center for Advanced Manufacturing and Innovative Design (CAMID) and Groundswell Startups’ Prototype Lab in Melbourne sign a one-year agreement in April to “support action-oriented innovators scaling impactful businesses through community and collaboration” in Brevard County.
- Consumer retail veteran and former Diane von Furstenberg CEO Sandra Campos named CEO of Delray Beach’s PetMeds Express.
- Tampa’s blockchain investors eye bounce back after crypto winter.
- HostDime data center coming online in Eatonville, a suburb of Orlando and the oldest black-incorporated municipality in the US – CEO of Orlando’s HostDime Global Corp, Manny Vivar, recognized for purpose-driven work putting data centers in underserved places – on the Ernst & Young 2024 Entrepreneur of the Year list for Florida.
- Tampa’s Voice AI Symposium by Bridge2AI, focused on integrating the use of voice as biomarker of health in clinical care, the NIH funding entity fueling the Voice as a Biomarker of Health project at USF, attracts startups from around the world and brought together academics, ethicists, clinicians, and advocacy groups to discuss how AI can be used to diagnose disease from the voice.
- Igor Jablokov, CEO of Pryon and previous founder of Yap (acquired by Amazon), the first high-accuracy cloud platform for voice recognition and the foundation for products such as Alexa, Echo, and Fire TV, to keynote Tampa Bay Tech’s annual poweredUP festival May 22 at the Mahaffey Theater in St. Petersburg.
Upcoming technology entrepreneurship events on our calendar:
- Accelerate Pitch Night, Tuesday, 4 pm to 7 pm, Alan B. Levan | NSU Broward Center of Innovation, Davie. Entrepreneurs and their startups will pitch their venture followed by the monthly TechXchange networker.
- poweredUP Tampa Bay Tech Festival, May 22, Mahaffey Theater, St. Petersburg. A day of innovation, inspiration, and networking opportunities featuring keynote speaker Igor Jablokov, CEO of Pryon and previous founder of Yap (acquired by Amazon), the first high-accuracy cloud platform for voice recognition and the foundation for products such as Alexa, Echo, and Fire TV.
- 2024 Florida Early Stage Venture Conference, June 4 to 5, Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, Orlando. The 16th annual Early Stage Venture Conference will feature a record $300,000 in award dollars and capital investment from Forum members Space Florida, DeepWork Capital, and Florida Power & Light’s Innovation Hub, 35 Mules. The conference also will include the Space Florida AeroTech Summit which will feature presenters and programming relevant to the space and aerospace industries, and the Forum’s Statewide Collegiate Startup Competition, during which startup teams from 10+ Florida colleges and universities compete for award dollars.
- Florida International Medical Expo (FIME), June 19 to 21, Miami Beach Convention Center, Miami Beach. The largest gathering of medical device and equipment companies in the US. Conference includes Business and Innovation Health Hub with Health Biz and Innovation Talks, Innvo8 Start-up Competition, and the Business and Trade Series.
- BioFlorida Annual Conference, November 19 to 20, all-day. Walt Disney World Swan, Orlando. This conference will bring together the life sciences community in the state and showcase current scientific advancements, business achievements, and public policy affecting the industry.
