South Florida Tech Startup Scene: StartupPOP Pitch Hits 10 years, 500 pitches In Boca Raton.

Last night I ran my 40th startup pitch event in Boca Raton, FL. The very first event was exactly 10 years ago in the summer of 2013 in Boca Raton, Florida at the Greenhouse Offices right at Yamato and Federal Highway.

That first event got something like 100 attendees. About 10 companies pitched in front of a shark-tank-like panel, and it was an amazing event.

10 years later the event is pretty much the same event, but things have changed in Boca Raton, Miami, South Florida for startups considerably. The startups are a different caliber. The actual investment environment is quite different. Those things that have changed really give the story of the South Florida Tech Startup scene and show what is happening now and how things are evolving.

As Miami Mayor Suarez stated on a call I was on with him during the pandemic; When people say they are moving to anywhere in south Florida from Coral Gables to Wellington, they simply say “I am moving to Miami”. “We are all Miami!”

In 2022 alone, 444,484 people moved to Florida to get to a total population in the state of…