miami-startups
(6)
Guardz Tried Selling Cybersecurity to Small Businesses. The Smarter Business Was Selling Through Their IT People
The startup's first route to market sputtered. Its 2023 pivot to MSPs turned that miss into a useful lesson: for small-business security, the trusted reseller may matter as much as the software.
Fuego Built a $150 Sneaker for the Five Seconds Dancers Hate Most
A salsa beginner hated changing shoes before class. His answer was a street sneaker that could spin - and a niche commerce playbook built for anyone whose product needs to be seen in motion.
OneBlinc Bet on Payroll Loans. Then the Money Got Expensive.
The Miami fintech built a data engine around public-sector payroll loans, raised a $100 million credit facility, and then watched higher rates squeeze the model. Its answer was a fast pivot to a smaller, subscription-priced payday bridge - and a revealing lesson in knowing when your first product has become your baggage.
Leonardo Gannio
Leonardo Gannio is the founder and CEO of MAGIIS, a Miami-based mobility-as-a-service platform for transportation-for-hire operators. A serial entrepreneur born in Buenos Aires, he built the technology distributor AKTIO Group into a $500M, seven-country business before selling it, after corporate stints at NCR, Informix, PeopleSoft, Lexmark and Ingram Micro. He is the author of 'Mobility 3.0: How to Win and Thrive in the Future of Passenger Transportation' and a keynote speaker who casts the future of mobility as electric, autonomous, connected and personalized.
Cody Simmons
Cody Simmons is the co-founder and CEO of DermaSensor, a Miami-based medical device company behind the first FDA-cleared, AI-powered handheld tool that helps primary care physicians evaluate skin lesions for cancer in seconds using elastic scattering spectroscopy. A bioengineer with a Brown degree, a Stanford master's and four years at Genentech, he took over the company in 2016 and spent nearly a decade shrinking a microwave-sized prototype into a point-and-click device, navigating FDA breakthrough designation, a De Novo clearance in early 2024, and a $16M Series B in 2025.
Zak Ringelstein
Zak Ringelstein is the co-founder and CEO of Zigazoo, a moderated, kid-safe social network often described as the antidote to TikTok. A former public school teacher and Teach For America alum, he built and sold his first edtech company UClass to Renaissance Learning, ran a left-insurgent 2018 U.S. Senate campaign in Maine as the only DSA-endorsed major-party nominee, then launched Zigazoo with his wife Leah during the pandemic. The company has raised roughly $26M total, including a $17M celebrity-studded Series A, and made headlines when Australia exempted Zigazoo from its sweeping social media ban.