Sun. Sand. And Startups.

A growing number of local entrepreneurs are turning Miami into the country’s next high-tech hub.

Words: Seth Porges
Illustration: Saskia Rasink

Miami is the traditional gateway to Latin America — so it’s no wonder that it’s increasingly attracting companies with global ambitions, with new tech-minded developers, educators, and accelerators making it their home. Fact is, the same perfect weather, pristine shoreline, and playful architecture that bring in 15 million visitors a year also make Miami an appealing place for the tech-minded to set up shop, from emerging neighborhoods like the Wynwood warehouse district to the skyscraper-strewn financial corridors of Downtown and Brickell, and, of course, the ever-enticing Miami Beach. And while Miami’s fledgling investor and talent pool have in the past presented challenges for entrepreneurs, change is afoot.

Facebook, Twitter, and Apple now have offices here, and both the Knight Foundation, known for funding innovative ideas in the arts and media, and influential VC firms such as Scout Ventures are making big bets in the area. “This city is on the cusp of reinvention,” says Rebekah Monson, cofounder of The New Tropic, a local news and lifestyle blog, as well as a pair of popular Miami tech meetups. “If you want to build something and have the willpower and the brains, there’s little standing in your way.” Proof? The six entrepreneurs featured here. Their collective vision and hustle are turning the city’s highrises,warehouses, and bungalows into bonafide launch pads.

Susan Amat

Founder of Venture Hive

It’s hard not to view the sprawling Downtown structure that houses the Venture Hive hub as a symbol of the evolving Miami tech scene. “It was an abandoned warehouse,” says Amat, who had previously co-founded an entrepreneur education program at the University of Miami. “Today, we house accelerators, startups, and the only Microsoft Innovation Center in the country.” And while Amat grew up in Coral Gables — and lives there now in a 1920s Spanish-style home — she feels pride in the effects tech centers such as hers are having on Downtown. “Just a few years ago, people were not living and working in Downtown, and that has totally changed,” Amat says.

Nabyl Charania

Founder of Rokk3r Labs

Charania’s stint in Miami was supposed to be temporary. After selling his last company, he decided to live by the beach while he rode out a non-compete period. But when he found a tech ecosystem full of ideas and potential — but short on talent and funding — he decided to stick around. Enter Rokk3r Labs: A company Charania founded in 2012 that works directly with entrepreneurs — more than 30 to date — in order to help them build their products, fill their teams, and secure capital. Charania lives in a waterfront high-rise in Edgewater — just a short drive across the bay from Miami Beach, where Rokk3r has taken up residency in a glass-topped office tower near the convention center. “Miami Beach is ideal for attracting talent to the area and a perfect landing spot for people who are new to the city,” Charania says.

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Adam Boalt

CEO of LiveAnswer

“Building my startup in another city may have been easier, but Miami is my home,” says Boalt, whose com pany is modernizing the call center; just ask Uber, a client. This is a common refrain for Miami founders, many of whom were drawn back as much for family and community as the town’s recent influx of capital and credibility. For Boalt that meant basing his company in the Pipeline Brickell coworking space in the financial district of Brickell and residing in Key Biscayne. (It’s a gracious waterfront villa with a rep for hosting the tech community in style.) And while Boalt recalls earlier pushes to transform Miami into a tech hub, he sees the current boom as the real deal. “Within 12 months Miami will be close to number one on the Kauffman Index of startup activity,” Boalt says. “As people move here, we’re seeing real change every week.”

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Felecia Hatcher

Founder of Code Fever

“As Miami tech took off , the African-American and Caribbean communities were left out of all the awesome resources,” says Hatcher, who had previously worked in marketing at Sony and Nintendo. Her solution was to start Code Fever, an engineering school that gives marginalized young people — and their parents — the skills needed to take part in the boom. Since launching almost three years ago, some 1,500 students have gone through its doors. Hatcher herself lives in a poolside apartment complex in the northern suburb of Davie and commutes about 30 miles to the Miami Beach WeWork office — what Hatcher calls coworking chain.

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Andres Moreno

Founder of Open English

“In 2007 I used Skype, and it clicked for me that education was going online,” says Moreno, whose company has since delivered online English courses to 400,000 users around the world. Moreno first followed the tried-and-true route of moving to Silicon Valley, but soon realized it wasn’t the ideal place to base a business aimed at the Latin American and European markets. Five years ago, that goal brought Moreno to Miami, where he and some of his 1,500 employees have taken up residence within Coconut Grove’s Art Nouveau masterpiece once known as the Mayfair Center — what Moreno describes as “the place everybody partied in the 1980s before the party moved to the beach.” Incidentally, that’s where Moreno now lives — in a 1930s, Mediterranean-style bungalow in Miami Beach.

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Wifredo Fernandez

Founder of The Lab Miami

“I realized there weren’t any shared environments for the startup community, so we set out to create a space for likeminded folks,” says Fernandez. A veteran of the education world, Fernandez’s goal with The Lab Miami was to build a campus that was as much a community as a classroom. Since it opened in 2012 — fueled by a $2-million grant from the Knight Foundation — The Lab Miami has become central to the Miami landscape. It has also helped turn the once-gritty Wynwood warehouse district into the backdrop for much of the action. Fernandez himself grew up and now lives in Coral Gables, residing in a classic apartment complex complete with a tiled roof and pale pink façade.

For more information on Miami’s evolving landscape, explore our neighborhood guides.