Tara Fung

Peoplepath x Mana Tech Scaling Startups Starts with Scaling Talent Miami founders, you showed UP. Vision. Courage. Fire. And one shared question: “How do I build a recruiting model that actually scales with me?” Here’s the truth we anchored in this week at Scale2Miami: Your talent engine IS your growth engine. Your next milestone, product, and breakthrough, all built by your people. That’s why Peoplepath loves and partners with ManaTech to support founders with exactly what they need in their earliest (and craziest) stages: 🔥 A scalable recruiting model 🔥 A hiring strategy tied to your runway + milestones 🔥 A process that adapts fast, pivots fast, and always aligns to your vision 🔥 Access to top talent, globally From zero-to-one hires to building out GTM, tech, ops, and customer-facing teams across LATAM, the US, and Europe, we’ve lived this journey 100+ times. And we’re bringing it straight into the Miami ecosystem. Thank you, scale2miami founders. Your grit, your ambition, your clarity, this is what builds cities, industries, and movements. And Miami… you’re becoming the talent capital of the world. More to come. 🚀

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Today we officially kick off our $2M pre seed round for Salubrum (Backed by Forum Ventures), supported by Forum Ventures, Coeus Collective Ventures, and Draper House Americas. Healthcare companies spend over $30B a year trying to acquire patients. The problem is not media. The problem is timing. Every time a patient approaches a healthcare decision a moment opens. Which doctor to see. Which procedure to pursue. Which treatment to start. For the companies involved in that decision, knowing that moment exists is incredibly valuable. Salubrum (Backed by Forum Ventures) is building the intelligence layer that maps those decision moments across the U.S. patient population. Our system aggregates large healthcare datasets covering 300M+ patient identities and uses them to predict when individuals are approaching important healthcare decisions. That signal can then be used by providers, pharma companies, payers, and other healthcare organizations trying to reach patients at the right time. Our first wedge is patient acquisition for healthcare providers and brands, but the underlying intelligence layer has much broader applications wherever patient behavior influences economic decisions. Over the past months we have quietly built the foundation. • Early pilots validating our patient intent scoring system • Distribution partnerships forming across healthcare platforms • Backed by Forum Ventures, Coeus Collective Ventures, Draper House Americas, NEXT Canada and Metta World Peace Starting tomorrow we will be meeting investors as part of the Forum Ventures showcase. If you are an investor interested in building with us get in touch. Calendly: https://lnkd.in/e5j-VvGC Investor Memo: https://lnkd.in/e5HyemAp

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Hot take: lot's of #LP's are growing underwhelmed with traditional venture investing. 💰 Fees are high given the level of engagement with the company operators. ❓ Access is opaque - LP's are unclear on the portco operations and outcomes. Outcomes are scattered - power law investing can certainly work, but many feel that venture capital investing is just a numbers game. There's another way. I'm biased, but I think it's better: #VentureStudios as an asset class. They blend: 🤜 🤛 Control and ownership 💡 Thematic focus 👬 Partnership with operators Studios offer a fund-like structure — but with more alignment, higher value conversion and less noise. If you're interested in understanding more about the studio model, we have resources to share. Please reach out and let's connect!

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Great overview of the Florida VC ecosystem 👇 What stands out is not just the ~$2.85B raised, but how distributed and specialized each region is becoming. • South Florida → crypto, fintech, LatAm access • Tampa Bay → strong early-stage pipeline • Orlando/Space Coast → deep tech, defense, space • North Florida → emerging operator-led funds Tax advantages help, but the real story is growing density of founders, angels, and operators building locally. Still early compared to SF and NY, which is the opportunity. Who are the next Florida-based funds or angels getting active?

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🔔 Attention Miami founders, investors, and startup ecosystem players! 🔔 If you're raising or thinking about it, this is one you won't want to miss. Very excited to be participating on this panel tomorrow night (March 17th) at The LAB Miami, where we will bring 5 distinct fundraising perspectives together for what promises to be an insightful conversation. Here's who's on the panel: 🦄 2x Founder Michael Assraf - $60M raised across 2 companies (Vicarius and Flamingo) 💸 VC investor Anuj Maheshwari, CFA of Fuel Venture Capital - an investor in Replit's $3B Series C round 😇 Angel investor Sonja Markova - Executive Director at University of Miami Cane Angel Network 🚀 Serial entrepreneur Sam Payrovi of ARKHAUS - pursued alternative funding and raised across crowdfunding and private investors 📈 Early-stage investor & advisor Ryan Martin (me!) - Managing Partner at Five Spheres and Investor-in-Residence at Seaworthy Collective Moderated by Grace U. - angel investor and Director of Founder Institute Miami. We'll get into the things nobody puts in a pitch deck: → When you're too early to raise (and what to do instead) → How angels and VCs actually evaluate early-stage companies → What fundraising mistakes keep costing founders → Why "alternative" funding isn't a consolation prize If you're building in Miami, this conversation was designed for you. 📍 The LAB Miami | ⏰ 6:00 PM | 🗓️ March 17th Hosted by Founder Institute - the world's largest pre-seed accelerator, with an alumni base that's raised $2B+ in funding. RSVP link in the comments 👇

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QvaPay probably wouldn't exist in its current form without the Airtm Cuba Sandbox Experiment that I ran to prove that OFAC-compliant US/Cuba funds flows was not only possible, but a moral obligation for anyone who solves problems with fintech (that's me!). And Airtm itself wouldn't have been possible without Uphold UPHOLD EUROPE LIMITED where Airtm started as an app I built on nights and weekends with some interns, including Airtm's current CEO Rubén Galindo Steckel. And Uphold itself would not exist if I hadn't built the world's first Mexican Peso fintech back in 2002-- Todito Cash. This is what building and risk-taking on the fractal frontier looks like-- compliance + defiance, innovation + moral motivation.

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Check out the latest funding news from across the Techstars portfolio. → Zipline (Techstars 2011), a drone delivery and logistics startup, raises more than $600M in new funding, boosting its valuation to $7.6B, as it expands commercial deployments. → Language learning startup Preply (Techstars 2015) raises $150M and becomes the 23rd known unicorn from Techstars accelerators. → Hydrosat (Techstars 2019) raises $60M in Series B funding → Tive (Techstars 2017) receives a $20M investment, valuing the shipment-tracking systems developer at slightly more than $500M. → Parambil (Techstars 2023) raises an additional $6M in seed funding ($8M to date). → Seasats (Techstars 2021) receives $24M in Department of War APFIT funding to accelerate the fielding of its autonomous surface vessels. → Hawaiian Airlines’ newly announced $600M Kahuʻewai Hawai‘i Investment Plan features a strategic investment in Ampaire (Techstars 2018) to support hybrid-electric aviation in the islands. → Fintalo (Techstars 2025) secures $500K+ in oversubscribed Pre-Seed funding. → PraxisPro (Techstars 2024) closes an oversubscribed $6M seed round. → Samara Aerospace (Techstars 2024) closes $10M seed round to help bring more stability to sats in orbit. → MyARC (Techstars 2022), a platform that enables fitness creators to train their communities at scale, secures £1.5M investment. Massive congratulations to these incredible portfolio companies!   🔗  Read more at https://lnkd.in/dxtCTvrg 

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