Fintech
Miami Fintech Startups Are Magnets for VC Funding
According to the latest data from Pitchbook, the Miami-Fort Lauderdale metro area raised $361 million in venture capital funding in the second quarter of 2024, a significant decline from the $623 million the area attracted in the first quarter.
The number of second-quarter deals for South Florida startups also dropped to 71 from the first-quarter total of 106. That compares with 89 deals comprising $378 million in the second quarter of 2023, Refresh Miami reported.
However, the report noted that two last-minute deals in June were not included in the total: Insightec, a Miami-based medical technology company, and Israel, which is developing focused ultrasound, raised $150 million, the largest fundraising round in Miami this year; asset tokenization startup Securitize had a $47 million round.
When factoring these two deals into South Florida’s Q2 VC total, Q2 results are close to the Q1 2024 total. With first-half 2024 VC haul approaching $1 billion, the region appears on track to match last year’s total of $2.4 billion, according to Pitchbook data.
Last year’s total in South Florida was a sharp decline from the region’s record VC haul of $5.8 billion in 2022, when the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area ranked seventh in the nation and defied a national VC investment crisis.
The good news in Pitchbook’s latest report is that Miami’s burgeoning fintech sector continues to flex its fundraising muscles. Four of the top five VC deals in the region involved Miami-based companies, three of which were fintechs.
FundKite, an online financing platform for small businesses moving from New York to Miami, raised $25.9 million; Payabli, a Miami-based fintech startup that helps SaaS companies get paid, raised $20 million in a Series A round; and Miami-based Majority, which offers an immigrant-focused banking platform, raised $20 million in the second quarter.
According to a Crunchbase report late last year, there are now more than 570 fintech startups based in Florida. Many of them are based in the Miami area, which is quickly becoming an international financial hub.
Cleantech and climatetech are also growing sectors in South Florida. Exowatt, a Miami-based cleantech startup, raised a $20 million seed funding round in the second quarter from investors including Sam Altman, CEO of Atomic and OpenAI.
Other regional startups that secured significant funding rounds in the second quarter included: Healing Realty Trust, a Boca Raton-based business productivity company that raised $20 million in a Series A round; Max Retail, a West Palm Beach-based marketplace for excess inventory, which raised $15 million; Felix Pago, a fintech remittance platform, which raised $15.5 million; and Dataplor, a global location intelligence startup, which raised $10.6 million.