Miami is about to get a new kind of launchpad – one built to be a magnet for top technical talent.
This January, venture capital firm focal is launching the Winter 2026 Residency for Technical Founders in partnership with The LAB Miami. It will be an intense three-month, in-person program designed to help hardcore AI builders launch venture-scale startups – “all the firepower of a top accelerator without the heavy dilution,” focal Managing Partner Pascal Unger [pictured above] announced.
The residency will bring together 10 hand-picked technical founders from across North America to work side by side at The LAB Miami in Wynwood. Participants will spend six days a week immersed in building, and surrounded by mentors who’ve scaled billion-dollar companies – including DigitalOcean, Mural, Papa, vLex, QuickNode, and Spotnana.
The goal: to create “the most talent-dense, high-velocity, carefully curated launchpad for technical AI founders outside of San Francisco,” saidUnger. “And you get to escape the harsh winter while you ship.”
Unlike a traditional accelerator, the residency doesn’t take a set equity stake up front. To help defray the costs of relocation or devoting themselves fulltime, founders selected for the residency can choose whether to take an optional investment – likely $25,000 for individuals or $50,000 for teams – which converts later at market terms once the company raises a round. Focal could also follow on with checks of up to $1 million.
Unger said the idea for the residency came from a mix of frustration and opportunity.
Unger co-founded focal after moving from Switzerland, where he grew up, to San Francisco over a decade ago, and landed in Miami during Covid for a planned two-month stay. “Four and a half years later, I’m still here.” But what the Magic City is missing, he says, is enough strong technical founders.
“I always said I wanted to do more locally, and I don’t like people that complain but don’t do anything about it, and I was doing exactly that,” Unger said, in an interview with Refresh Miami. So “I decided to start something to do something about it.” The idea for the residency stems from a desire to build more opportunities for technical founders to thrive in Miami.
Unger’s VC firm recently started deploying its second fund, at $50 million. Focal specializes in backing “inception-stage” software and AI startups with investments up to $1 million. “About half of the investments we’ve made recently were basically the same week as the company’s inception,” Unger said. Focal’s portfolio includes three local startups: Flamingo, Prescient AI, and Alchemy Bio.
The residency is an experiment, but one with ambitious goals.
“Success for us starts with curating an incredible group of very talented, high-output individuals with the right values… they push each other ,” he said. Second, he said, is creating the right culture where they move fast and build amazing things in a successful and rewarding experience. “Ideally some of them will come to the same conclusion I did, which is, ‘this is such a great place, why leave?’ If we achieve those two things, a lot of good things will come for the Miami ecosystem,” Unger said.
For founders in Miami and across North America, applications for the Winter 2026 Residency are now open at focal.vc/residency. Apply by Dec. 14. There’s no “too early” to apply if you have an idea, the drive to build a venture-scale company, and the ability to ship at breakneck speed, Unger said.
Ayal Stern, a co-founder of The LAB Miami, called the residency a “zero-fluff, ultra-curated residency for technical founders building category-defining AI companies in the heart of Wynwood.” The LAB will offer free space and the access to top mentors and a founder-first VC in focal ready to to invest, “If you’ve got the spark, the chops, and the speed, we want you in the room,” Stern said.
Adds Unger: “It’s been pretty incredible to see the support we’ve received here locally. … People here want this to succeed, because, again, Miami doesn’t have enough really strong technical founders – yet.”
READ MORE IN REFRESH MIAMI:
- Flamingo launches from stealth with $2.2M to help IT providers cut costs with AI and open source
- From Bezos to Dimon to Trump, America Business Forum brought big ideas – and Miami – to a world stage
- Miami’s tech opportunity is to take on New York City, not San Francisco
- Make room, Waymo: Tesla robotaxi service may soon be coming to Miami
- From Madrid to Miami, Lodgerin is building the future of global mid-term rentals
