Venture capitalist explains how Florida became ‘all about technology and innovation’

Florida Funders Managing Partner Tom Wallace sits down with Yahoo Finance Live to talk about Florida becoming a Southeast U.S. hub for startup, tech, and crypto companies, government support in developing business hubs, and venture capital presence in the state.

Video transcript

- Many Americans moved to Florida during the pandemic seeking warm weather, relaxed COVID restrictions. But the business climate has also become a major draw. Tom Wallace is the managing partner of Florida Funders. Their motto, "from Sunshine State to startup state." Tom, good to see you. What's the pitch?

TOM WALLACE: Dave, good to see you. Thanks for having me on your show. The pitch is Florida is all about technology and innovation, and not tourism and agriculture any longer. And as you mentioned, COVID, really-- and a lot of people came here during COVID because other states were locked down. And what they discovered was something we Floridians have known for a long time. This is a great place to live. It's a great place to raise a family. It's a great place to start a company.

It's a great place to get investment for your company. And many of them are staying. So I'm at the eMerge Americas show right now in Miami. That's where you're reaching me from. And we've got over 20,000 people here that are founders, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists-- all celebrating and looking at the next great technology companies, which will be coming from Florida. Which will be coming from Florida.

- The conditions you mentioned apparently haven't always been the case, at least if you listen to Russell Weigel, who's the commissioner of the Office of Financial Regulation. He said, "We're at the top of the charts in entrepreneurship, but we're close to the bottom in being able to fund them." Why has that been the case?

TOM WALLACE: Well, that's a really good question. Historically, that has been the case. But I would argue that's changing very rapidly. If you look at the latest numbers, I mean, Florida's attracted more venture capital last year than any other state in the Southeast. We're in the billions of dollars. I just think, historically, Florida was not a technology state, wasn't known for innovation. But now, with crypto, Miami's becoming the crypto capital of the world, as many people know, with Web3, with all this coming on, and so many people.

Because any area becomes known for technology because of two things, and that's talent and capital. And the talent's here, and coming here, and capital is coming here. We're seeing it. It used to be that many of our entrepreneurs had to leave here and go to Silicon Valley, or Austin, or Boston, or New York to get funding. That is no longer the case because of venture capital firms and crowdfunding platforms like Florida Funders and many of our peers. So there's a lot of early stage capital now in Florida, and that's keeping many of our entrepreneurs here.

And even attracting entrepreneurs and founders from around the state-- even around the country. Many of the eMerge people here for this conference are from other parts of the world.

- You mentioned the enthusiasm around crypto. Francis Suarez, the mayor, there, of Miami, really has endorsed it. And Bitcoin week was certainly a success, although the price of Bitcoin wasn't necessarily. How is the political environment making things that much easier for you?

TOM WALLACE: Yeah. I just had lunch with Mayor Suarez. He's here. So I think our government officials, Mayor Suarez, our governor, really have embraced, really, business, technology, innovation, and the future, which is, obviously, a lot of it's crypto, Web3, DeFi. So you know, in the past, we've been laggards in that area. Now, it's so exciting to see, again, our government leaders getting behind this whole movement and realizing this is our future.

This is the future of the State of Florida, and we are going to be a state known for technology and innovation.

- What particular cities are leading the way here? You mentioned Miami, obviously.

TOM WALLACE: Yeah, I would put Miami at the top. I actually live in Tampa. I think Tampa is doing-- we're doing a lot of cybersecurity in Tampa. A lot happening there. Orlando has a lot.

- Yep. Had a little bit of an issue there. We are trying to hold out with this signal. But good to have Tom Wallace here. Tom, are you back with us? Continue.

TOM WALLACE: Yeah. What I was saying is, in addition to Miami, we have Tampa, which is a lot of cybersecurity and a lot of technology there. We have Orlando, with gaming. Electronic Arts is there, and there's a lot of gaming in the Orlando area. And then the Space Coast. Obviously, with SpaceX and all that's happening in the space industry, and tourism and the space industry, is over in the Space Coast. So really, it's statewide. We have a lot of technology and different parts.

And fintech is really big here. Edtech. And digital health, because, you know, we're really-- health care is huge in the State of Florida.

- Tell us about some of your success stories.

TOM WALLACE: Oh, my gosh. So I think Florida is up to, like, 20 unicorns, which are companies valued over a billion dollars. There are so many of them. Chewy.com is out of Fort Lauderdale. Fanatics is here. And there are a lot of cybersecurity software companies that-- ReliaQuest, KnowBe4. These are companies your viewers might not know, but these are still profit companies. But they've been valued at over a billion dollars.

So lots of success stories. And then the crypto world, there's a lot there too. Pocket, a company in Tampa, Florida, is really doing very well, as well as many-- a lot here in Miami, as we talked about already.