Some people prove that age is just a number when it comes to entrepreneurial talent.
That's certainly the case with the young founders and executives highlighted in the inaugural Miami Inno Under 25, a roundup of promising South Florida technology professionals who are 25 years old or younger. Our inaugural list includes startup founders, CEOs and executives who are working in fields including venture capital, cannabis marketing, autonomous drones, auto insurance software and e-commerce.
The honorees were chosen based on nominations and Miami Inno's editorial selection process.
Olivia Gaudree, 25, Fuel Venture Capital
At 25, Olivia Gaudree is already making her mark in the world of venture capital.
The Florida State University graduate is a partner and core analyst at Miami-based Fuel Venture Capital, a role she’s held for more than three years. Gaudree’s interest in the nuts and bolts of running a business began in childhood. Her parents, an entrepreneur and a CPA, openly discussed their work and the status of their ventures, conversations that piqued Gaudree’s interest.
She held internships at Boca Raton-based Blue Shores Capital and Thomson Reuters before joining Fuel Venture Capital in 2018. And Gaudree knows it’s essential to have female decision-makers at the table: According to the Harvard Business Review, women make up only 11% of venture capital partners at investment firms, a gender gap that can lead to disparities in startup funding, as well.
“To see the growth potential in a firm and watch it take off, with the right support and funding, is a thrill that I do not think I could ever get tired of,” she said.
Curtis Lary, 22, Hextronics Global
Lary is the lead engineer and CEO of Hextronics Global, a Miami-based company that produces docking stations for drones. He started the business after graduating from the Georgia Institute of Technology a year early in 2020.
“I had a time where most of my friends were still studying and I had more freedom without being completely tied down,” he said.
As a student, Lary worked to develop an overhead robot that drove on ceiling rails to autonomously deliver meals for restaurants. After the Covid-19 pandemic hit, he decided to switch to aerial drones.
He ended up using the tuition that would have been spent on school to start Hextronics in his apartment. Autonomous drones, used for everything from monitoring construction projects to analyzing crop growth, are gaining in popularity.
That’s good news for Hextronics, which offers low-cost, compact drone stations to support consumer demand. After just a year in business, the company is shipping to customers worldwide.
Michael and Matthew Vega-Sanz, 25, Lula
The Vega-Sanz twins grew up understanding the value of hard work. Those lessons have served them well as startup founders.
The sons of Puerto Rican and Cuban immigrants, thepair was raised on a farm in South Miami. They studied at Miami Dade College before transferring to Babson College.
That’s where they launched Lula, a car-sharing app for college students who wanted to rent out their vehicles. The concept expanded to more than 500 U.S. college campuses before it hit a roadblock: the Covid-19 pandemic.
With campuses shuttered, the Vega-Sanz brothers decided to pivot. Lula 2.0 provides software that car rental and car-sharing companies need to process and manage insurance claims.
Now Lula, which bills itself as the “Stripe for Insurance,” is attracting major supporters. This year, it closed an $18 million Series A financing round backed by investors including Founders Fund and Khosla Ventures, SoftBank and Florida Funders. The funding enabled Lula to increase hiring and bring its service to thousands of clients on its waiting list.
Sam Harris, 25, SpringBig
Harris is the co-founder and VP for product development at SpringBig, a cannabis marketing software firm that is among the South Florida Business Journal’s fastest-growing companies.
SpringBig estimates it reaches 65% of the country’s 38 million legal cannabis users through its software-as-a-service-platform. The service allows businesses to market their goods and loyalty programs directly to customers via text message, a strategy to help retailers retain their clients.
“Seeing the products we make improve people’s lives in real time – be they consumers enjoying a better experience, retailers experiencing a deeper understanding of their member base or brands reaching consumers who never knew they existed – is remarkably rewarding,” Harris said.
SpringBig has raised $20 million in investment capital since 2017. This year, it gained hundreds of new clients after it acquired customer experience platform BudTender for an undisclosed sum. The Boca Raton-based company now has 160 employees, up from about 50 in early 2020.
Kayra Yasa, 21, Instate Collective
Yasa’s formative years in Miami were instrumental in molding her into the entrepreneur that she is today.
Born in Istanbul, Yasa moved to the Magic City at the age of 10. At first, her interests skewed toward the arts, eventually leading her to Design and Architecture Senior High School in the city’s Design District.
She quickly realized it wasn’t for her. When Yasa was assigned to work with textiles, she became fascinated by making plastics out of materials such as beans and seaweed. It was far more interesting than creating garments, she said. That led her to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where Yasa studied materials science and engineering before leaving to join biotech startup Virex Health as one of its first employees.
She’s also the co-founder and CEO at Instate Collective, an online women’s apparel marketplace that sells U.S.-made products. And that’s not the only thing keeping her busy. Yasa is in the process of developing Eva Health, a virtual health assistant designed to diagnose and reduce menstrual discomfort.
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