If it feels like the beginning of this year has been dominated with breaking funding news, you're right.
From January 24 (the launch of Inno) until the last day of 2019 Q1, over $110 million was raised for startups in the Tampa Bay area. Here's a breakdown of what bottom lines went up the last few months:
• Intelity raises $44 million. We kicked off my very first Beat with some exciting news for our friends a little farther east. Intelity, an enterprise tech platform for the hospitality industry, announced Jan. 28 it raised $44 million in funding from LLR Partners, a Philadelphia-based private equity firm.
• University of South Florida St. Petersburg’s Tiedemann College of Business gets $3 million donation. Longtime donors Kate Tiedemann and partner Ellen Cotton (hence the name of the school) gave the funding on Feb. 4 as a vote of confidence for current Dean Sridhar Sundaram and to send a message that they believe the school will continue to flourish in the long term. It’s up to Sundaram how to spend the funds, which could go a multitude of ways, including creating an internship coordinator position or supporting grants.
• ConnectWise gets acquired by Silicon Valley-based Thoma Bravo, creating 70 millionaires in employee-owned company. On Feb. 25, Tampa Bay’s largest software development firm announced they would soon be acquired. While we didn't know how much the deal was, the company was last valued at $1.2 billion and CEO Arnie Bellini said $270 million would be split among the non-C-level employees. About 70 of those employees will get a cool $1 million.
“Here’s the great thing — there are 20 other ConnectWises,” Bellini said. “So we’re trying to help uncover them, but it’s about creating the ecosystem. Tampa is right on the tipping point; now you have big money focused on Tampa Bay.”
• Pocket Network Inc. raises $750,000. Funds were raised from investors locally, from Philadelphia and from South Korea through a simple agreement for future equity fund, according to an SEC filing. The Tampa-based company enables any application to connect to the blockchains of their choice while still having a decentralized infrastructure.
CEO Michael O’Rouke said the new funds will be used to hire more employees, namely blockchain engineers, economic researchers and communications/marketing people in the region.
• $50 million puts KnowBe4 close to unicorn status. On March 1 the massive investment from New York City-based private equity firm KKR put the Tampa-based cybersecurity company at an $800 million valuation.
“We’re getting very, very close [to unicorn status],” CEO Stu Sjouwerman said. “Unicorn is a billion (valuation) and we’re a stone’s throw distance.”
• Table Dot receives $100,000 investment. On March 12 the Tampa Bay company (and one of our pitchers from our State of Innovation event!) received a $100,000 investment from an unnamed investor on Tuesday, according to SEC reports and CEO Katherine Allen. The company provides on-demand chefs to customers with cuisine they can choose. Allen said the funds will be used for more technology, more key hires and to expand its beta tests beyond Tampa and enter into Madison, Phoenix and Orlando or Miami.
• Voalte Inc nears $180 million acquisition. Chicago-based Hill-Rom Holdings Inc. announced March 11 they are looking to acquire the Sarasota-based caregiver communication system. The acquisition comes with an additional $15 million in payments related to hitting “certain milestones,” according to reports.
• Lot Monkey receives six figure investment. The St. Pete-based company that offers a merchandising and marketing inventory system to car dealerships, received a second investment from the StartFast Venture Accelerator, based in Syracuse, N.Y.
While COO Tom Lindsay could not disclose the amount, he said it was six figures and larger than the first investment, which was given to the company in the summer of 2018.
• Florida fintech firm acquires Worldpay Inc. for $43 billion. On March 19 the Jacksonville-based Fidelity National Information Services Inc. announced plans to acquire the Cincinnati-based company which specializes in e-commerce technology. According to Bloomberg, it’s the biggest deal ever in the international payments sector.
• Peerfit gets $18 million investment. The digital-health startup that has a focus on bringing co-workers together to work out, garnered the attention of Silicon Valley-based Virgo Investment Group and recieved the investment March 19. The funds will go on to further expand Peerfit’s new foray into senior citizen fitness with Peefit Move.
