Despite what boosters may have envisioned amid a pandemic-era spike in migration to Florida a few years ago, the Sunshine State is not emerging as a startup hotbed.
So far this year, Florida-based startups have raised around $820 million in seed- through growth-stage financing, excluding one hard-to-categorize deal. 1 By this measure, investment is on track to hit its lowest level in years, as charted below:
Where the funding went
Among the larger deals that did get done, funding was concentrated in the Miami metropolitan area.
This includes Miami-based Cast AI, which closed a $108 million Series C round in late April led by G2 Venture Partners and SoftBank. The 6-year-old company sells an application performance automation platform for enterprises.
Flow, the developer of community-oriented rental properties launched by WeWork founder Adam Neumann, picked up another big financing, closing on a $100 million round last month backed by Andreessen Horowitz.
ONE Amazon, which sells crypto coins linked to environmental preservation projects around the Amazon rainforest, also picked up $100 million to further its mission, while ThreatLocker, an Orlando-based cybersecurity provider, locked up $60 million in equity financing this month, per an SEC filing.
For a bigger-picture view, below we put together a list of nine of the largest 2025 rounds for Florida-based startups.
In addition to large funding rounds, we did see one Florida company make a splashy debut. Boca Raton-based right wing news outlet Newsmax Media went public in March and saw an early spike that sent shares soaring. (The stock has declined since then, recently trading around $25 a share, with a market cap around $3 billion.)
Not a lot of exits or unicorn follow-on rounds
One thing we’re not seeing is much funding to Florida-based companies at the $1 billion-plus valuations seen a few years ago, when investor spigots were flowing more freely.
Of Florida’s small herd of unicorns and one-time unicorns, many haven’t raised reported funding in several years. This includes cloud kitchen startup Reef, security management platform Kaseya, and Papa, a platform to connect older adults with people to provide help and companionship.
Florida, and Miami in particular, also haven’t exploded as hubs for cryptocurrency and blockchain, as many had envisioned. So far this year, only around $21 million in venture funding has gone to Sunshine State startups in blockchain and cryptocurrency industry categories, per Crunchbase data.
Enthusiasts had hoped the space would gain momentum locally, especially after Miami Mayor Francisco Suarez campaigned to make the city a Bitcoin and crypto hub several years ago. Defunct crypto exchange FTX even secured naming rights to the city’s NBA arena (now called Kaseya Center).
We may see one big exit out of the crypto space in coming weeks, however, with Monday’s announcement that Eric Trump-backed American Bitcoin, a subsidiary of Miami-based Hut 8, will go public through a merger with Gryphon Digital Mining.
Still plenty of assets to offer startups
Even though this year has been sluggish on the funding front, it’s not reason enough to write off Floridian cities’ potential as up-and-coming startup hubs. Many of the core factors that helped generate buzz among startup types and digital nomads a few years ago — like warm weather, beachy environs, no state income tax, dynamic urban centers — haven’t changed.
We’ll stay tuned in coming quarters to see if funding levels indicate a bounceback in investor enthusiasm about the Florida startup pipeline.
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Illustration: Dom Guzman
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