Moderne founder and CEO Jonathan Schneider tried out a few cities before basing the startup in South Florida.
When he launched the application development company with co-founder Olga Kundzich in 2020, he figured he needed to be in San Francisco if he wanted a shot at securing venture capital funding. Then, he hired Moderne's first employee, who happened to live in Seattle – so, he made the move nine hours north. The company was headquartered there for more than a year as the Covid-19 pandemic raged.
Soon enough, he started to hear about Miami.
"I remember reading about Miami's sense of community when other places were locked down," he said. "People were coming here ready to build."
So, he made the move. It's something he may not have done even a few years earlier, when it was assumed an entrepreneur had to work from a handful of viable industry cities – like San Francisco, New York or Boston – to launch and scale a successful tech business.
Schneider was among a slew of tech founders to relocate to Miami during the pandemic, drawn to the region's relaxed Covid-19 policies and business-friendly environment. Backed by $4.6 million in seed funding, the remote-first Moderne now has 15 employees and a headquarters office based in a Miami WeWork. The startup, which automates and speeds up software repair for customers, has plans to hire in Europe and the U.S.
South Florida's openness to in-person events and networking was appealing to Schneider during a time when many U.S. cities were mandating strict mask and lockdown policies, Schneider said. And its proximity to Europe and Latin America, both markets where Moderne aims to grow, also made the city a better choice logistically than traditional West Coast tech hubs.
Schneider said the migration of technical startups like Moderne to the Miami area is a sign the region's innovation sector is gaining traction.
But will the entrepreneurs who relocated stay as the rest of the country opens up? Schneider anticipates they will.
"The advantages that Miami has are interesting and I don't think it was something people thought about before [the pandemic]," he said.
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