Our year-in-review covers highlights in AI, crypto, healthtech, ecosystem momentum, tech relocations, venture trends & more
By Riley Kaminer and Nancy Dahlberg
Miami tech did not take 2025 off. If anything, it talked less and built more. Our entrepreneurs kept producing companies, funding rounds, and launching products … just with a little more substance behind them this time around.
At Refresh Miami, that translated into hundreds of stories across startups, investors and operators who are very much still at it. Some sectors cooled down. Others leveled up. A lot of the noise gave way to infrastructure, execution, and work that looks a lot more durable than it did a few years ago.
This year-end wrap-up pulls together a few of the biggest threads we saw again and again in our reporting. Crypto moved from hype to plumbing. AI got more useful and less theatrical. Healthtech focused on problems people actually have. The South Florida startup ecosystem got major love in a handful of global rankings, while dozens of larger tech companies, mostly international players, put down roots right here. And through it all, Miami kept doing what it does best: moving forward, building in public, and giving us plenty to write about.
Miami’s crypto scene shifted from hype to infrastructure in 2025
If there were a single throughline across Miami’s crypto/web3 this year, it was money flowing toward things that actually work. Fundraising stayed active, but the tone changed. Less noise, more plumbing.
Some of the biggest signals came from deals that pushed crypto closer to the mainstream financial system. Securitize’s $1.25 billion SPAC deal made it clear that tokenization is here to stay, and that serious players are thinking about onchain finance at scale (more on tokenization in a second).
Elsewhere, the action was in payments and infrastructure. Transak raised $16 million to scale stablecoin payments with Miami as a key hub, while Shield picked up $5 million to smooth out global trade payments using stablecoins under the hood. The trend here is all about moving money faster, cheaper, and with fewer headaches.
Trading and market structure also saw increased attention. Rails launched with $14 million to rebuild trust and risk controls after the FTX fallout, while GoQuant and Senpi focused on speed, smarter execution, and tools built for professional traders. Even Solana’s DeFi stack got a boost, with a16z crypto backing Jito’s $50 million round to support core network infrastructure.
Then there were the headline-grabbers. MoonPay’s $175 million acquisition of Helio showed consolidation is very much underway, and that payments giants are positioning themselves for the next phase of growth. Meanwhile, Raise and Superlogic looked beyond finance, using blockchain rails to rethink gift cards and loyalty programs.
In 2025, web3 started to feel less hypothetical, more real; less exotic, and somehow more dependable. No laser eyes required. – Riley Kaminer
Tokenization took center stage as real-world assets hit blockchain
This year, tokenization went from a niche crypto concept to something that even big financial players are taking seriously. Locally, Securitize’s $1.25 billion SPAC deal helped make tokenization a headline story and signaled that claiming digital versions of assets is now a business people pay attention to.
This momentum is part of a broader shift: globally, institutions are piloting and launching tokenized funds and securities that settle faster and trade more flexibly than their traditional counterparts. Major banks, including JPMorgan Chase, launched tokenized money-market funds on public blockchains, showing Wall Street’s interest in representing real assets as digital tokens rather than paper records.
Miami fintechs made this trend tangible in different corners of the market. Cypator showed that tokenization doesn’t work without grown-up markets, replacing phone calls and Telegram chats with institutional-grade trading infrastructure. Maple Finance showed how tokenization and stablecoins are converging into a new kind of on-chain asset manager built for institutional scale. Even healthcare payments got the tokenization treatment with Solum Global’s blockchain approach.
Tokenization can reduce middlemen, open up access to fractional ownership, and speed up settlement in markets from bonds to commodities. If 2025 was the year tokenization moved into the spotlight, 2026 looks set to build on that foundation – with more real-world assets onchain, more regulatory clarity, and more projects that make blockchain useful outside of pure crypto trading. – Riley Kaminer
As AI grows up, #MiamiTech built the infrastructure layer
This year, Miami’s AI story was led by companies building the systems underneath everything else. The year made it clear that the real work of AI is happening behind the scenes, in infrastructure, tooling, and platforms designed to run reliably at scale.
A steady stream of South Florida startups focused on exactly that. Agentuity raised capital to build an AI-first cloud for autonomous agents. Cast AI and Exowatt tackled the very real constraints of cloud cost and data-center power as AI workloads exploded. Pillar Security stepped in with guardrails for enterprises deploying AI, while Appy.AI and Lamatic worked to lower the friction of building AI-native businesses in the first place.
This applied mindset showed up across sectors. Pelico scaled supply-chain AI from Miami to global manufacturers. Urbint’s technology proved valuable enough to drive a $325 million acquisition, highlighting how AI-driven infrastructure risk tools are now core assets. In legal and financial services, platforms like vLex, Gail, and Document Crunch showed how deeply AI is embedding itself into professional workflows that once resisted automation.
Even education and talent pipelines reflected this shift. Miami Dade College, FIU, and the Miami AI Hub leaned into training, research, and workforce readiness, while major players like Google put money behind the effort.
Miami’s role this year was less about inventing intelligence and more about making sure it could actually run, scale, and be trusted. – Riley Kaminer
AI, meet your user. Copilots, agents, and second brains … oh my!
If one half of Miami’s AI year was about infrastructure, the other was about interfaces. 2025 was the year AI stopped feeling abstract and started showing up in people’s daily work.
Across industries, founders focused on AI as a helper rather than a replacement. OnCourse built an AI sales rep that actually closes deals. OutRival’s AI staff made a million calls a month for colleges. SocialPost.ai helped small businesses look like big brands without big teams. Teal applied AI to career navigation, while productivity tools experimented with managing everything from to-do lists to cross-border moves.
Healthcare stood out in particular. Sofya positioned its platform as a second brain for doctors. IntelePeer reworked patient communications. OneImaging and Fourier focused on cleaning up medical data and imaging workflows so care teams could act faster and with better context. EVQLV pushed AI deeper into drug discovery, cutting time and cost in antibody design.
A recurring theme across these stories was restraint. Instead of aiming to replace employees, founders focused more on training AI like an employee, giving it context, limits, and accountability. Trust, usability, and human-in-the-loop design mattered more than raw capability.
By year’s end, AI in Miami felt closer, calmer, and more practical. Not a looming force, but a set of tools quietly doing work alongside people. For a technology once defined by hype, that shift may be the biggest milestone of all. – Riley Kaminer
Teal’s platform
Miami’s ecosystem shines globally
The world is taking notice, too. The Miami metro area – Miami-Dade through Palm Beach County – is moving on up with four 2025 global rankings.
Miami ranked No. 22 ranking in the world among startup ecosystems, according to the 2025 Global Startup Ecosystem Report by Startup Genome and the Global Entrepreneurship Network. Against its US peers, our metro area ranks 10th, showing strength in funding, especially late-stage investment, and market reach thanks to ecosystem’s international connections. The 2025 GSER includes research and insights from more than 350 entrepreneurial ecosystems and 5 million startups.
Dealroom analyzed 288 qualifying cities and metro areas in 69 countries to rank the Miami metro ranked No. 25 globally and No. 11 in the US in its Global Champions category. Miami ranked 28th in Startup Blink’s Global Startup Ecosystem Index, which analyzed ecosystems in 118 countries and 1,473 cities, for factors such as number of startups, funding, unicorn count and valuation, startup exit activity, and the presence of global tech company branches.
In the latest Brookings report on AI, Miami was a “Star Hub,” one level below the Bay Area’s dominant “Superstars” of San Francisco and San Jose. Out of nearly 400 U.S. metro areas, just 28 made the Star Hub cut. According to this report, Mapping the AI Economy, Star Hubs are regions showing real strength across all three pillars of AI growth: talent, innovation, and adoption. It shows Miami, one of the fastest-growing metros for AI job postings, has got enough momentum and infrastructure to matter in the national picture. – Nancy Dahlberg
From operating rooms to longevity labs, Miami’s healthtech year got very real
Healthtech in Miami had a wide-ranging year, but the common thread was practicality. Instead of chasing abstract moonshots, founders focused on fixing workflows, closing access gaps, and helping clinicians spend less time fighting systems and more time caring for people.
In hospitals and clinics, AI moved closer to the point of care. Theator pushed surgical intelligence directly into the operating room, while OneImaging raised $38 million to clean up the messy, fragmented world of medical scans. Sofya leaned into the same idea from a different angle, building what it calls a second brain for doctors, designed to help clinicians keep up with growing volumes of data without burning out.
Healthcare infrastructure also got an upgrade. Alafia, led by Miami native Camilo Buscaron after years in Silicon Valley, focused on modernizing the computing backbone that clinicians and researchers rely on, aiming to make advanced tools usable in real time rather than locked away in research silos. Fourier tackled healthcare’s data chaos head-on, using AI to make sense of systems that rarely talk to each other.
Latin America also loomed large. Kiwi raised $10 million to address a $60 billion healthcare gap across the region, while payments platform Osigu secured backing from Eos Ventures to rethink how healthcare payments move across markets.
Consumer-facing care saw momentum too. Trinity Aesthetics applied AI to med spas, smoothing booking and patient engagement, while Yung Sidekick built tools to strengthen the link between therapists and patients outside the office. Even hearing care got a quiet upgrade, as scaleup hear.com continued modernizing a category long overdue for change.
Our region’s healthtech story this year was all about utility. Smarter tools, better access, and systems that feel like they were built for the people using them. – Riley Kaminer
Moving in: OpenEvidence and dozens more companies plant their HQs right here
In other healthtech news, we welcomed OpenEvidence to the Magic City. The company is considered one of the country’s hottest AI startups in healthcare that is valued at $12 billion after raising $650 million in its most recent 2025 rounds. OpenEvidence was founded by CEO Daniel Nadler in Cambridge, Mass, but relocated to Miami in mid-July. Known as the ChatGPT for doctors, it is the fastest-growing clinical decision support platform in the United States.
This year, Refresh Miami reported on two dozen well-established tech companies that announced relocations or expansions, some promising to bring hundreds of jobs to South Florida. They include California-based Fortune 500 company ServiceNow, a leading AI platform for enterprise business transformation, which announced that its expansion in West Palm Beach will create 850 jobs. The new offices will be ServiceNow’s new regional innovation hub and include its AI Institute. MyBambu, a cross-border financial technology company, moved into its 35,000-square-foot global headquarters in West Palm Beach, and plans an addition of 190 jobs. Iru, an AI-powered IT and security platform formerly known as Kandji, has grown to over 150 South Florida employees since its relocation early this year. And AMPERA, an advanced nuclear energy company, came out of stealth and announced its global HQ would be in Palm Beach Gardens. AMPERA said it plans to employ 100 in South Flrodia by the end of 2026.
Notably, most of the Miami newbies are international companies relocating or significantly expanding to our area. They include Australia-based Simpro Group, a major provider of AI-powered field service solutions for the commercial and residential trades that over time plans to employ about 500 people in its new North American HQ in downtown Miami. Other companies hail from France, Colombia, Chile, El Salvador, Turkey, at least two companies from Spain, several from Brazil, and several from Israel. With so many soft-landing programs now in Miami, among many other tours, scaleup programs, regional initiatives and country programs underway, this trend will continue to be one to watch and nurture for years to come. – Nancy Dahlberg
Universities and community organizations take the reins in ecosystem development
In more healthtech news, Elon Musk’s Neuralink selected the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine as the second US clinical trial site to test whether Neuralink’s brain chip can give people who are paralyzed the ability to use only their thoughts to control their electronic devices .In June, UM’s first Neurolink patient, RJ, a U.S. military veteran who was paralyzed after a motorcycle accident, received his implant and reported that yes it does. He called Neuralink “a game changer.”
Not all our university news and ecosystem initiatives grab national headlines like UM’s news did (it was the year’s top read story on Refresh, too). But by working together, they help to elevate South Florida as a special place where tech innovation can thrive.
On the ecosystem building front, The LAB Miami relaunched with two Wynwood campuses and quickly became the go-to spot for spontaneous connections, coworking, meetups, panel discussions and small conferences. eMerge Americas and its partners unveiled an AI School and launched the Gold Coast Tech Accelerator Program with cohorts in Miami and West Palm Beach focused on fintech and defense tech.
But wait, there’s more! South Florida Tech Hub named ecosystem leader Imran Siddiqui its CEO to lead its next chapter and launch or relaunch signature programs, including its Tech Hub Pulse conference coming March 5. The Levan Center of Innovation at Nova Southeastern University in Davie appointed Michael Burtov, a serial entrepreneur, as executive director of the Alan B. Levan | NSU Broward Center of Innovation. SPARC South Florida’s pitch competition sent a local startup to the Startup World Cup finals. As for Refresh Miami, you kept us busy in 2025: We published 442 stories, all paywall free, and hosted 14 events in 2025.
Miami Dade College, Florida International University, tech bootcamps and other partners played key roles in the success of Miami Tech Works, an initiative aimed at creating and increasing career pathways for students in technology. Through the three-year grant-funded program, Miami Tech Works partners trained and placed 500 students in tech jobs, and the program was extended for another year. Separately, MDC received a $2 million investment from Google to expand a program to prepare the institution’s students for AI careers. – Nancy Dahlberg
Funding activity may surprise you – in a good way
Venture capital activity kept climbing in 2025. The final tally isn’t in yet, but my early analysis points to the best year since 2022 and the third year of growth. The fintech sector, which includes many crypto startups, continues to rule as South Florida’s most active sector by far, and while medtech had a weaker than usual first half, it’s rallying in 2H. We also saw climatetech have a good first half, bucking the national trend. Stay tuned for my full-year deep dive. Without giving away too much, I expect to report a very large leap for 2025 South Florida fundings. That’s worth celebrating.
In fund news, Anti-Fund, co‑founded by Geoffrey Woo and Jake Paul, closed its $30 million Anti Fund I and added Logan Paul as a partner. Among specialized funds, Fort Lauderdale-based The LegalTech Fund launches $110 million Fund II, and West Palm Beach-based Ascenta Capital closes $325 million inaugural fund to back biotechs. VC firm focal is launching a 3-month residency for technical founders in Miami, in partnership with the LAB Miami. It will have “all the firepower of a top accelerator without the heavy dilution,” focal Managing Partner Pascal Unger says. – Nancy Dahlberg
The year in conferences: Go big or go home
Last but not least, Miami’s conference game reached a whole new level in 2025, and you know that’s the case when the speakers really need no introduction.
America Business Forum led the pack with a who’s who of tech & finance, politics and sports. From Jeff Bezos to Jamie Dimon to President Trump, America Business Forum brought big ideas – and Miami – to a world stage. Along with that big three, Lionel Messi, Serena Williams, Eric Schmidt, Ken Griffin, Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado, Saudi government and business leaders, and the CEOs of F1 and FIFA took the stage, among many others. Francis Suarez had a big hand in luring the speakers. “This conference is our gift to you. The future is not something we wait for – it is something we are building together,” Suarez, then Miami’s mayor, told the capacity crowd at the Kaseya Center’s arena. This conference that also spared no expense on its stage and production theatrics is likely to come back to Miami, at least for the next couple of years. A gift that keeps on giving.
Over at Miami Beach Convention Center in the spring, eMerge Americas, Miami’s homegrown tech conference and expo, went big into AI and deep tech – with 2025 speakers like Palmer Luckey of Anduril and a much larger presence on those topics on its stages and in exhibits. Other speakers included Daymond John of Shark Tank, Dave Portnoy of Barstool Sports, and Pitbull, among many others, but as always Florida’s founders were always in the spotlight, too. During Miami Art Week, eMerge Americas produced the inaugural Tech Basel Miami AI Summit. The summit was curated by Miami AI Hub’s Burhan Sebin, now part of eMerge’s team, and featured Cathie Wood of Ark Invest, executives from Nvidia, Meta, Google, and Hugging Face, and leaders in defense tech.
Other conferences Refresh Miami covered in 2025 represent the breadth and depth of Miami’s tech conference scene, including the CrossRoads Summit, Fintech Nerdcon Miami, Blockchain Futurist Conference, Smart City Expo Miami, SPARC South Florida Pitch Competition, Infobit Shift Miami, Possible, Miami Tech Summit, Miami AI Agent Summit, Israel Tech Week, Startup Olé, Super Return, Florida Venture Capital Conference, FII Priority Summit, Miami Digital Real Estate Summit, and IATI Mini MIXiii Miami healthtech conference. In 2026, we look forward to many of these conferences returning and a new (to us!) conference joining the lineup: Coindesk’s Consensus, the largest crypto conference in the Americas, comes to Miami Beach Convention Center May 5-7 and Refresh will be there. – Nancy Dahlberg
From our team to yours, Happy New Year!
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Refresh Miami has been chronicling the rise of #MiamiTech through our stories since 2018, and we expanded our news staff significantly when founders and funders began migrating here in a big way during the pandemic. Here you can find our year in reviews for 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021 and 2020. And stay tuned for our 2026 look-ahead report on venture capital.
ICYMI, CATCH UP ON OUR 2025 SPECIAL REPORTS:
- From tech to turf, Miami is flexing its sportstech muscles
- Will Miami’s crypto scene in 2025 be a new era or just more of the same?
- Get to know 5 communities at the heart of Miami’s tech scene
- Miami’s women in VC are rewriting the investment playbook
- Miami metro hauls in $2B in VC in 1H 2025, eMerge report finds. Florida on the rise: We’ve got data.
- Crypto keeps building in Miami, and investors are paying attention
- Miami’s tech opportunity is to take on New York City, not San Francisco
- And keep up with #MiamiTech at refreshmiami.com/news
If you don’t receive our free weekly Refresh Miami newsletter every Tuesday, sign up here. Follow Nancy Dahlberg on X @ndahlberg and email her at [email protected]. Thank you for reading and supporting Refresh Miami.
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