Florida Funders, founded in 2013, is a hybrid venture capital fund and crowd-funding platform that invests in early-stage technology companies in Florida.
The firm is led by an experienced team of serial entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and experienced angel investors with a proven track record of successful exits and a shared passion for growing the next generation of Florida tech companies.
Working with individual investors, Florida Funders creates special investment vehicles as an LLC to represent the investors once the investment minimum has been reached. Florida Funders sees a large number of deals per month and puts them through a rigorous vetting process to find the very best companies to invest in.
Post-funding, the firm treats its portfolio companies as partners, providing value-added resources to help their businesses grow. The firm uses its partners, their networks, and its investors to provide coaching, industry advice, and introductions to potential customers as well as later-stage venture capital firms. These resources give start-ups the best chance to succeed in building a break-out technology company.
STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS
Florida Funders has drastically expanded its outreach over the last year by partnering with key organizations throughout Florida. Florida Funders announced a joint venture with Florida Angel NEXUS, an angel investment group. Florida Angel NEXUS is a statewide network of accredited angel investors, funds, and family offices focused on investing in early-stage high-growth ventures.
In addition, Florida Funders was selected by the Florida Institute for Commercialization of Public Research to provide growth to emerging technology companies in Florida. The portfolio from the Institute for Commercialization of Florida Technology provides Florida Funders with a $22 million-dollar portfolio and 64 Florida-based technology companies to grow and create value for the State of Florida and Florida Funders stakeholders.
SUCCESS STORIES
Within the last year, Florida Funders have invested $5.7M into 8 exciting early-stage technology companies. Florida Funders has completed investments in emerging Florida startups, including PICKUP, Peerfit, Homee, RepScrubs and ClassWallet.
Florida Funders completed a $1.22 million dollar investment in PICKUP, an agile last-mile delivery platform for large or heavy retail products that features Good Guys – a trusted network of military veterans, first responders and handy professionals. With Florida Funders investment, PICKUP announces plans to continue expansion.
Additionally, Florida Funders announced two follow-up investments, total totaling $575k, in Peerfit, a Tampa-based health technology company that provides a digital platform for employers to offer employees health and fitness benefits.
Florida Funders completed a $1 million-dollar follow-on investment in Homee, an on-demand mobile application responsible for connecting customers with local service providers. Homee provides homeowners, property managers, offices, restaurants, hotels and more with access to handymen, electrical, HVAC, plumbing service providers through the Apple and Android applications.
Florida Funders announced a $1.1 million dollar investment in RepScrubs, a Sanford, Florida-based smart scrub solution for modern medical facilities. RepScrubs provides a vending machine system that distributes disposable scrubs for medical device representatives inside of hospitals to create a more sterile solution for healthcare.
Lastly, Florida Funders invested $735,000 in Miami-based ClassWallet, a highly practical and powerful web-based spend management tool specially designed for the vast educational market. More than 2,000 schools nationwide currently use ClassWallet to automate processes for transactions for over 63,000 teachers and principals.
PICKUP, Peerfit, Homee, RepScrubs and ClassWallet are just five of many key investments Florida Funders have completed within the last year as they continue to fulfill their mission of turning the ‘Sunshine State’ into the ‘Startup State’. Florida Funders will continue to partner with new organizations and invest in growing startups throughout the upcoming year, meanwhile, growing the economy in the state of Florida.
