Victor Santos

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?

4

3 Comments

Today Humanity Link is excited to announce a new partnership with Mercy Corps Ventures -- to be building out an innovative #stablecoin pilot alongside Aleo and our partners. Together, we’re launching a privacy-enhanced group cash transfer pilot in rural Colombia, reaching migrant community Village Savings and Loans Groups. We’re combining stablecoin-based group wallets with Aleo’s zero-knowledge proofs so groups can verify VSLA rules without exposing individual transactions — strengthening dignity, safety, and trust in digital cash where it matters most. What is a ZKP (zero-knowledge proof)? It’s a cryptographic method that lets you prove something is true (for example, “this transfer followed the agreed group rules”) without revealing the underlying details. Testing this in a real-world cash context is super important because it could unlock a new standard for privacy-by-design in humanitarian cash—reducing risk, protecting people, and still keeping programs accountable. #HumanitarianInnovation #CashAndVoucherAssistance #CVA #FinancialInclusion #PrivacyByDesign #ZeroKnowledgeProofs #ZKP #Aleo #DigitalPublicGoods #FintechForGood #ImpactTech #AidInnovation #DataProtection Henk-Wim de Boer Maciej Bulanda Sandra Uwantege Hart Illia H. John Reynolds Andrey Asfaganov

119

15 Comments

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

95

6 Comments

🔔 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 👇

53

10 Comments

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.

4

2 Comments

🚀 Meet PACT, simplifying SBA-backed acquisitions with investors. Think YC’s SAFE, but built for Main Street M&A. 📘 What is PACT and why we built it PACT (Partnership Acquisition Commonsense Terms) is a free, balanced starting point for the agreements used in SBA-backed acquisitions with outside investors. For too long, SBA-backed acquisitions with outside investors have been the wild west: every deal is different, inefficient, and confusing, especially for first-time searchers raising capital. PACT gives everyone a common baseline so reviews are faster, expectations are clear, and operators can focus on acquiring the business. 🧩 SAFE for ETA Y Combinator’s SAFE gave startups a shared template that made early investing easier to execute. PACT brings that same idea to ETA. It teaches the key concepts in plain English, aligns searchers and investors on the economics, and sets a fair place to start. Our goal is for PACT to become the default baseline for investor-backed small business acquisitions using SBA loans. 🤝 Who contributed 🏛️ Legal input from top SMB M&A attorneys: Joseph Spina (Cullen and Dykman LLP), Mark Dittrich (Groundswell Advisors, LLP), and Eric Hsu (Clear Focus Law, PLLC) provided feedback on drafts. 💼 Early investor adopters: Jordan F. (Shareholder Ventures), Grant Hensel (Entrepreneurial Capital), Jason Ehrlich (Fruition Capital), Sean Smith (Search Fund Ventures), Adam Kaplan (ETA Funding Partners), Jacob Hall (Kando Capital), Tony Cappaert (Workbench Capital) and Adam Markley (PROX Search Capital) have adopted PACT on new deals. 🎓 Community support: Chelsea Wood and Walker Deibel at the Acquisition Lab and Buy Then Build have committed to start educating the community on how investor deals work using PACT. 👉 What to do next 🔍 Searchers: download the docs and ask your lawyer to start from PACT. ⚖️ SMB M&A Law firms: review the templates and send feedback so the next version is better. 💸 SMB investors: adopt PACT as your starting point and share redlines from real deals. This is a community-led standard, and we will keep versioning PACT as feedback comes in from all sides. 📝 Thanks: Special thanks to Joseph Spina for leading the legal drafting with me and helping shape a true middle ground. 🔗 Download PACT and see the key terms: ETAPACT.com (link in the comments) Let’s make investor-backed acquisitions clearer, faster, and fairer for everyone. 🚨 DISCLAIMER: PACT is not legal advice. Searchers must engage experienced SMB M&A counsel to review and tailor these documents to their deal.

65

27 Comments

📊 AmTech Daily: Deals Defining America's Future — Feb 25, 2026 Each morning, Commonweal Ventures compiles the day's top #AmTech deals and news at the intersection of government and technology. Here's today's. Comment "Subscribe" to get the full briefing, news included, in your inbox. Education  🔹 Subject (Beverly Hills, CA), which offers an AI-powered digital curriculum platform for middle and high school students, raised $28 million in funding led by Vistara Growth, joined by NextEquity Partners, Green Street Impact Partners, Outcomes Collective Growth Capital, and other existing investors. Health  🔹 Handl Health (Los Angeles, CA), which provides an analytics platform to help health plans and benefits consultants design employer health benefits that lower costs and improve care quality, raised $14.2 million in Series A funding led by Arthur Ventures, joined by Syndra Capital Partners, a strategic investor, Mucker Capital, Riverfront Ventures, Digital Health Venture Partners, and Boutique Venture Partners. Aerospace  🔹 Sophia Space (Pasadena, CA), building orbital data centers composed of ultra-thin, solar-powered computer panels called TILES that sit on or next to satellites, raised $10 million in seed funding led by Alpha Funds, KDDI Corporation Green Partners Fund, and Unlock Venture Partners. Finance  🔹 Comeryx Insurance (Denver, CO), which runs an AI-driven online insurance platform that automatically prices and issues specialty liability coverage for small trade contractors that traditional carriers won't easily underwrite, raised $7.5 million in seed funding led by Altai Ventures, joined by American Family Ventures, Intact Ventures, Boulder Ventures, Arch Capital Group, and Echelon. AI Chips  🔹 Cerebras (Sunnyvale, CA), which designs wafer-scale AI chips and computer systems that let large organizations train and run advanced AI models faster and more efficiently, has confidentially filed to go public in the U.S. after previously raising more than $2.5 billion in private funding across eight rounds. Energy  🔹 Terrasmart's eBOS division (Grand Rapids, MI), which makes prefabricated electrical wiring and combiner-box systems that connect utility-scale solar panels to inverters and the grid, was acquired by GameChange Energy Technologies for $70 million to extend its end-to-end solar infrastructure offering. What is #AmTech? It's our term for the companies tackling America's biggest challenges in sectors like energy, defense, healthcare, and infrastructure. In these markets, the path to building category-winning companies runs through government, and the founders who understand that are building the most consequential technology businesses of our generation.

14

4 Comments

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 

164

7 Comments

We’re thrilled to share that Usul (YC S24) has raised $3.3M in Seed funding led by Scout Ventures with participation from BVVC, Teamworthy Ventures, True Ventures, Y Combinator and more. Usul is the modern platform for defense contract capture and federal growth. Our customers have won hundreds of millions in defense contracts for capabilities across Air, Land, Maritime, AI/ML and more. When Oliver Gomez, Joonghyun Lee and I joined forces during Stanford’s Hacking 4 Defense class, we interviewed 300+ defense companies to intimately understand how difficult it is for national security solutions to get deployed quickly at scale. In normal capital markets this is called dead weight loss. In warfighting, this costs lives. We're building an elite team of hackers and defense enthusiasts in San Francisco. If you’re interested in powering the next 1000 defense primes, email us at founders@usul.com or dm me. Read more about our journey in Erin O'Brien's Tectonic article below in the comments. Lastly, thank you to our amazing cap table for joining the ship. Bradley C. Harrison, Cody H., Nate George, Zach Beecher, Michael Keane, Joe Musselman, Gene Ebersole, Nick Nowlin, Thomas Lehrman, Stephen Schmalhofer, Michael Montano, Gustaf Alströmer 🇺🇦, Jared Friedman, Steve Blank, Jacqueline Tame, Jack Shanahan, Peter Newell, Steve Weinstein, Jeff Decker, Ivan Kirigin, Jeff Heitzman, Keith W. Gibson, CFCM, SCPM, John Tincoff, Michael Malis, Austen Allred, Tom Hsieh, Donald Donckers

448

77 Comments