Southwest Florida angels invested $360,000 in Aperiomics, a health technology firm that can identify every known microorganism in a clinical sample with just one test.
 
NAPLES, Fla. (December 10, 2020) — A group of angel investors from Southwest Florida invested in Aperiomics, a pathogen-testing company that can identify as many as 40,000 microorganisms in a single test.
 
Members of Tamiami Angel Fund IV invested $360,000 in Aperiomics. This is the 30th company in the Tamiami Angel Funds portfolio and the first investment for the members of its newest fund, Tamiami Angel Fund IV.
 
“Aperiomics is changing everything about how infections are identified. We are excited about the company’s groundbreaking genetic-based technology that uses big data to revolutionize microbial identification and improve human health,” said Timothy Cartwright, partner of Fifth Avenue Family Office and chairman of Tamiami Angel Funds.
 
Most tests today can only identify a few microbes at a time, incapable of giving the answers that patients and physicians seek. To solve that problem, Aperiomics developed a technology that identifies every known bacterium, virus, fungus and parasite through deep metagenomic sequencing, using its proprietary, world-renowned database containing nearly 40,000 microorganisms. The results from this test can help doctors and their patients identify the causes of infections that other tests cannot, streamlining the path to a positive clinical outcome.
 
“Aperiomics is extraordinarily grateful to work alongside the Tamiami Angel Funds to fundamentally shift the paradigm of infectious disease testing,” said Dr. Crystal Icenhour, CEO of Aperiomics. “Leveraging Tamiami’s expertise and resources, our team will be well-positioned to accelerate our advanced DNA metagenomic sequencing technology to become the diagnostic standard of care.”
 
About Aperiomics
The only company of its kind and scope in the world combining advanced DNA testing, the power of big data and decades of infectious disease expertise, Aperiomics is revolutionizing the way that medical professionals around the world identify infections. Supported by the National Science Foundation, Aperiomics identifies every known bacterium, virus, fungus, and parasite through deep shotgun metagenomic sequencing, using its proprietary, world-renowned database containing nearly 40,000 microorganisms. Helping doctors and their patients identify the causes of infections that other tests cannot identify, Aperiomics streamlines the path to a positive clinical outcome. Aperiomics was named Life Science Innovator of the Year in 2016 and International Start Up of the Year in 2018. www.aperiomics.com

Tamiami Angel Fund III invested in Wellbox, a health technology company that helps people who suffer from chronic illnesses.
 
NAPLES, Fla. (July 27, 2020) — Tamiami Angel Fund III, Florida’s largest angel fund, invested in Wellbox, a health care technology company that is benefiting from the current boom in virtual care driven by medical providers who have recently adopted remote management mandates in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
Tamiami Angel Fund III invested $625,000 into Wellbox, based in Jacksonville, Florida.  Wellbox is the 16th company in the portfolio of Tamiami Angel Fund III.
 
Founded in 2015, Wellbox was formed to help health care providers manage patients with chronic illnesses who are on Medicare, the government health-insurance program for older Americans.  Wellbox has since expanded to new markets, including provider-directed care management and employee-care management for self-funded employer plans.
 
“We provide a turnkey solution for providers who want to offer that extra care for their panel of patients but do not have the resources to support such a program,” says Nathanial Findlay, chief executive officer and founder of Wellbox.  “From identifying eligible patients to managing enrollments, providing telehealth coaching and processing Medicare reimbursement and employer billing, we offer a seamless program for any size provider group.”
 
Over the last two years, Wellbox has performed more than 250,000 chronic-care management visits across the nation, pairing experienced registered nurses with technology to boost patient engagement and compliance between office visits.
 
“I am really proud of the service we provide at Wellbox,” says Findlay.  “Not only are we improving the outcomes and quality of life for the patients we serve, but we are driving down the cost of these high-risk, high-cost patients to our health care system. It’s a win-win.”

Naples Angels Invest in Marketing Technology
 
Tamiami Angel Fund III invested in Fotobom Media, a company that delivers content based on email and text messages.
 
NAPLES, Fla. (June 22, 2020) — Tamiami Angel Fund III, Florida’s largest angel fund, invested in Fotobom Media, a mobile phone keyboard application that delivers content based on users’ emails and text messages.
 
Tamiami Angel Fund III invested $568,000 into Fotobom Media, based in San Francisco. Fotobom is the 15th company in the portfolio of Tamiami Angel Fund III.
 
According to social-media analytics, 85% of the information sharing on mobile phones occurs when people email or text-message content to each other using apps such as WhatsApp and Snapchat. Yet marketers and publishers spend more than 90% of social-marketing dollars on social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
 
Working in partnership with network carriers, phone manufacturers and messaging applications, Fotobom’s keyboard application is preloaded on mobile phones and set as the default across all applications on a user phone. Then, Fotobom’s technology suggests content, apps and websites to users based on contextual information gathered from messages sent via the keyboard app.
 
“Fotobom connects mobile phone users to relevant information and content whilst texting,” commented Max Minhas, T3’s board member representative. “Its cutting edge technology will change text messaging from a basic communication medium to a powerful social networking platform. It’s currently on Verizon messenger and in the process of expanding globally.”
 
“This exciting new technology will help publishers and marketers target audiences much more accurately because Fotobom has real knowledge of users’ preferences from what they emailed or texted,” says Timothy Cartwright, partner of Fifth Avenue Family Office, the founder of Tamiami Angel Funds.
 
The sharing of information by copying and pasting content in emails and text messages has been dubbed “Dark Social” because until now it hasn’t been mined.  Companies are eager to connect with users in this untapped world because it’s more accurate than the algorithms developed by social-media giants.
 
“By understanding what users are sharing on Dark Social, Fotobom is better able to effectively target users with relevant and useful information using groundbreaking technology,” says Cartwright.
 
Angel investing is an important source of financial support and mentoring for new and emerging-growth businesses such as Fotobom Media. Angels help entrepreneurs before they seek venture capital, but after they’ve exhausted money from friends and family. Such investors typically are wealthy individuals or families who have the means to risk their capital and give freely of their time to mentor entrepreneurs in the startup phase of a business.
 
Headquartered in Naples, Fla., Tamiami Angel Funds consists of four member-managed funds that allow high-net-worth individuals and families to invest in promising early-stage and expansion-stage companies located in the U.S., with a preference for those in the state of Florida.  Fifth Avenue Family Office is the administrator of the angel funds and caters to high-net-worth entrepreneurs and their families.  For more information, visit www.tamiamiangels.com.  
 
About Tamiami Angel Funds
Tamiami Angel Fund I, Tamiami Angel Fund II, Tamiami Angel Fund III and Tamiami Angel Fund IV are member-managed funds that allow high-net-worth individuals and families to invest in promising early stage and expansion-stage companies located in the U.S., with a preference to those in the state of Florida.  Fifth Avenue Family Office, the administrator of the angel funds, caters their multi-family office services to high-net-worth entrepreneurs and their families.  The funds are members of the Angel Capital Association and the Florida Venture Forum.  For more information, visit www.tamiamiangels.com.

BUSINESS OBSERVER                                                                               
The COVID-19 crisis hasn’t stopped Fifth Avenue Family Office from executing its strategy. That includes hiring a savvy — yet untested — college athlete to run a new angel fund.
by: Brian Hartz Tampa Bay Editor

Fifth Avenue Family Office, a Naples-based boutique investment firm, picked quite a time — a worldwide pandemic — to start a new angel investment fund. Adding to the unique challenge: It hired a fresh-out-of-college, 20-something to run it. 
But innovation and bucking trends is what the firm’s Tamiami Angel Funds are all about. Collectively, the first three funds have attracted some $15.2 million from 131 investors. The fourth fund, which will be overseen by the newbie, Sofia Blanno, 23, aims to land 45 investors. 
A former tennis standout at Auburn University and Florida Gulf Coast University who started her own clothing company while in college, the entrepreneurial Blanno is off to a flying start. Despite starting work less than a month before the COVID-19 crisis hit, she has already secured 10 investors who are required to buy in with a minimum investment of $100,000 if they’re existing clients or $150,000 for new clients. 
‘I wanted to learn a lot more about venture capital, angel investing, the entrepreneurship space and just kind of connect with people.’ Sophia Blanno, administrator of Tamiami Angel Fund 4 at Fifth Avenue Family Office in Naples
Business success has come quickly for Blanno, but she says that’s partly because failure doesn’t faze her. Aspiring toward a career as a professional tennis player taught her to accept and learn from negative results. 
“You lose 75% of your matches — if you’re lucky,” she says, referring to her early days of competitive tennis, which began at age 12. “There was an entire year when I did nothing but lose. But that builds your character. I can be screamed at, and it just doesn't phase me. I learned to ignore extreme negatives and pull out the positives and turn things into constructive criticism.” 
Tim Cartwright, a partner at Fifth Avenue Family Office and the chairman of Tamiami Angel Funds 1, 2 and 3, says Blanno’s mix of entrepreneurial skills and high-stakes athletic achievement make her experienced beyond her years and a superb fit for the pressure-filled world of startup funding. 
“But I haven't just thrown her into the deep end and expected her to swim,” Cartwright says. Blanno, he explains, has been shadowing Susi Kimball, the Tamiami Angel Funds’ current administrator. “As she gets more and more skills and more and more proficient, she'll end up leading the charge and assuming the role of full-time fund administrator.”
Cartwright also saw Blanno serve up some impressive performances during her time with FGCU’s Runway program, a business accelerator for student entrepreneurs. Blanno joined the program in 2017 and received nearly $30,000 in investment for Best Dressed, her subscription-based fashion startup that went on to generate $38,000 in sales in its first year. She was also part of FGCU’s Institute for Entrepreneurship and enrolled in a venture-capital class Cartwright taught. 
Blanno and Cartwright began discussing the possibility of her joining Fifth Avenue Family Office in January, when she sought more capital for her company. She has since put Best Dressed on the back burner while she helps other startups. 
“We still operate, but we’ve slowed down,” she says. “I've just become really interested in this position here. I wanted to learn a lot more about venture capital, angel investing, the entrepreneurship space and just kind of connect with people.” 
A key connection Blanno and Fifth Avenue Family Office have made is with Vital Vio, a Troy, N.Y.-based startup that’s created bacteria-fighting lights. Following a successful pilot project aboard a 757 aircraft, the company reached a deal with Delta Airlines that will see its antimicrobial lights installed in the carrier’s entire fleet. Vital Vio also has ties to the Tampa Bay area, partnering with Bayfront Health St. Petersburg on a study of how the lights could reduce microbial contamination in a hospital trauma room. 
Given how the COVID-19 crisis has upended life as we know it — and will for the foreseeable future — it couldn’t be a better time to throw support to firms like Vital Vio. The company’s technology doesn’t kill viruses, outright, “but it kills bacteria, which is the environment where viruses grow,” Cartwright says. 
Fifth Avenue Family Office’s Tamiami Angel Fund 3 has invested $724,705 in Vital Vio. The initial investment was $400,000 in October 2017, followed up by an additional $324,705 in March 2019. 
“Like Vital Vio, we have some portfolio companies that are doing great,” Blanno says. “But we have some that are struggling” because of COVID-19. Blanno says she, Kimball and Cartwright have been reviewing the Tamiami Angel Funds’ portfolio to see if additional funding could help struggling firms “lengthen their runway” as the coronavirus pandemic continues to batter the economy. 
“What's important to us is that they can continue to operate,” Blanno says. “We’re not walking away from anybody.” 

Leaders in the Venture Capital Industry Will Steer Florida’s Largest Venture Organization MIAMI &

TAMPA, Fla – July 16, 2019 – The Florida Venture Forum, a statewide support and member organization for investors and entrepreneurs, today announced its 2019 - 2020 slate of board officers and executive committee members.

“It’s a great honor to serve as chair of the Florida Venture Forum for the coming 2019-2020 board term, and I am particularly excited to share the leadership of our organization with such an esteemed group of industry leaders,” said Travis Milks, managing partner of Stonehenge Growth Equity Partners and incoming chair of the Florida Venture Forum. “This is an exciting time for the VC industry in Florida and nationwide, and I look forward to working with my fellow Forum board members to fulfill the Forum’s mission of helping dynamic and growing companies connect with the capital and services they need to grow and scale.”

The Forum’s board officers, past chairs, and at large officers form the organization’s executive committee, which provides high-level leadership and direction to the organization and its staff, the board of directors, and to Florida’s thriving and growing entrepreneurial ecosystem and venture capital industry.

2019 - 2020 Board Officers:
• Chair, Travis Milks - Managing Partner, Stonehenge Growth Equity Partners, Tampa, FL
• Vice Chair, Carolyn Mathis - Partner, Harbor View Advisors, Ponte Vedra Beach, FL
• Treasurer, Jeff Olender - Partner, Cherry Bekaert, Tampa, FL
• Membership Chair, Casey Swercheck- Director, Capitala Group, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
• Program Chair, Mark Volchek- Partner, Las Olas Venture Capital, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
• Conference Presenter Selection Chair, Jennifer Dunham - Partner, Arsenal, Orlando, FL
• Florida Venture Capital Conference Co-Chair, Steve Castino - Partner, Vestal & Wiler, Orlando, FL
• Florida Venture Capital Conference Co-Chair, Beau Baker - Partner, Akerman, Jacksonville, FL

Past Chairs and Chairs Emeriti:
• Daniel Aronson - Partner, Berger Singerman, Miami, FL
• Dave Felman - Shareholder, Hill Ward Henderson, Tampa, FL
• Ken Grider - Managing Director, Raymond James, St. Petersburg, FL
• Wayne Hunter - Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Harbert Growth Partners, Richmond, VA
• John Igoe - Partner, Locke Lord, West Palm Beach, FL
• Steve Lux - Managing Partner, Stonehenge Growth Equity, Tampa, FL

At Large Board Officers:
• Sean Barkman - Principal, Ballast Point Ventures, Tampa, FL
• Nayef Perry - Managing Director, Hamilton Lane, Miami, FL
• Frank X. Dalton - Founder and Partner, Fulcrum Equity Partners, Atlanta, GA
• Nelson Castellano - Shareholder, Trenam Law, Tampa, FL
• Tim Cartwright - Partner, Fifth Avenue Family Office, Naples, FL
• Steve Vazquez - Partner, Foley & Lardner, Tampa, FL

About the Florida Venture Forum
​The Florida Venture Forum is Florida’s largest statewide support and networking organization for venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, helping startup and growth companies connect with the capital sources and business services they need to grow and scale. To date, companies presenting at Forum conferences have gone on to raise over $6 billion in equity capital, and a third-party economic impact study concluded that the Forum has contributed nearly $9 Billion in overall economic value to the State of Florida. The Forum hosts networking and educational programs throughout the year in addition to producing the annual Florida Venture Capital Conference, Florida Statewide Collegiate Business Plan Competition and Florida Early Stage and Angel Capital Conference. For more information, visit http://www.flventure.org or e-mail pat@flventure.org or kevin@flventure.org. ###

A student-operated benefit corporation that doubles as a business training program is giving teens a rare education opportunity. Some big business growth challenges are the next obstacle.

by: Andrew Warfield Lee-Collier Editor

According to its website, Taste of Immokalee, in part, is designed to "equip high school students with the entrepreneurial skills needed to rise out of poverty and make a positive impact on their community.”

So far, so good — down to providing some rare on-the-job learning experiences for high school students, including making sales pitches in front of potential angel investors and Publix executives. 

Taste of Immokalee is also developing into a big business, thus empowering its student participants and graduates to provide an example that, even in one of the Florida’s most impoverished communities, there are opportunities for success and hope for a brighter future. It started as a grant, and now, five years later, Taste sells sauces and salsas inspired by family recipes and eastern Collier County’s abundance of produce.

Taste of Immokalee offers six sauces and salsas online and in retail stores, including 240 Publix locations.How big a business? In 2018, Taste of Immokalee, a benefit corporation, or B-Corp, posted 141% growth in annual sales revenue. Officials project a 229% increase in 2019, thanks largely to a deal to put its products on the shelves of 240 Publix stores in Florida, a 90% increase in the grocery chain’s presence. Its line of sauces and salsas are also sold in other retail outlets in Southwest Florida and on the company’s website. Proceeds are reinvested in the company and its educational programs and are also distributed to local organizations working to break the cycle of poverty in the mostly agricultural migrant community.

As a B-Corp, under Florida law Taste of Immokalee can operate as a for-profit entity that engages in substantial socially beneficial activities beyond what might be allowed for traditional corporations. In practice, that means these students really do work, Executive Director Marie Capita says.

“The students are paid interns who work in the program throughout the year," Capita says. "They do inventory control, marketing, public relations, branding, Quickbooks, send out invoices, reconcile checkbooks, HR compliance — they do it all. Everything a real company needs, they do.”
Capita, a former practicing attorney whose family immigrated from Haiti when she was 5 years old, founded the Immokalee Business Development Center in 2010. She was operating that center and volunteering with Junior Achievement at Immokalee High School when she agreed to lead the fledgling social enterprise.

“I am drawn to do this first and foremost because I am an immigrant myself,” she says. “I saw the hurdles I had to cross in order to make something of myself, and I don’t want them to have to go through the same things. We try to teach them to never let their environment define their future. If I can do it, so can they. I came from the same background as they do.”

Capita was first recruited as a mentor after the 1 By 1 Leadership Foundation received the first of two State Farm Youth Advisory Board grants, for $94,000, to get the project going. 

“It was a project that was supposed to last a year, and now we’re five years into it,” Capita says. “When the students went to sample at stores and festivals in Naples, they discovered people wanted to buy their product."

The two State Farm grants totaled $180,000. Those, with additional donations, have sustained the educational component of the program.

But that doesn’t cover everything. In addition to other grant funding, Tamiami Angel Funds made a charitable investment of $25,000 in Taste of Immokalee through the Community Foundation of Collier County,and has since provided more. Tamiami Angel Funds Executive Director Tim Cartwright says the students themselves pitched Taste of Immokalee to the investment group.

“They were in some local stores, but they wanted to be in Publix,” Cartwright says. “They were successful with Publix locally, and they were at a point to where if they wanted to grow, they would like to move the copacking line closer to Immokalee, and in order to do that, there would be costs in purchasing some equipment.”

Health scare to hope
Taste of Immokalee has also brought hope to a community among the poorest in the state. In a place where many youth are compelled to quit high school to work in the fields with their families, the program demonstrates that success is attainable, even for them. Six of its founding members graduated college in 2018 and 2019 and are pursuing careers and continuing to give back to Taste of Immokalee.

“I had no idea when we were chopping tomatoes after school, that we were creating a company.”  Regine Francoise, Taste of Immokalee co-founder.

Co-founder Regine Francoise recently graduated from Columbia University in New York City with a degree in sociology. Of the 404 freshmen members of her high school graduating class, she says 216 earned a diploma.

With a desire to serve in the ministry, Francoise has secured employment at Columbia, where she will help lead student outreach. In addition to multiple scholarships to cover ancillary expenses, she was awarded a full academic scholarship by the university, a value of about $70,000 annually.
“Starting Taste of Immokalee is one of the things that has shown me I can do anything I set my mind to,” says Francoise, who immigrated to the U.S. from Haiti. “Growing up in Immokalee, I was surrounded by the hardest-working and most sacrificing people, but they would tell me I would stay in this town like everyone else. To be a part of something as big as Taste of Immokalee opened our eyes to a larger world.”

Taste of Immokalee co-founder graduated in 2019 from Columbia University with a degree in sociology.A health scare five years ago opened Capita’s eyes as well. She had moved to Naples after operating a successful private law practice in Miami for 10 years and was juggling multiple enterprises, including a bakery in Immokalee. A single mother of three, she cites stress as the cause of a mystery illness that hospitalized her for 22 days. She also credits the scare for her emerging with a new perspective.

“While hospitalized, being a single mom with three children, I thought, 'What is it that I would want my children and my community to remember me by?'” she says. “It makes you reevaluate your perspective on life.”

The birth of Taste of Immokalee provided Capita with her new purpose, but it was not without challenging her business acumen.

“I don’t think anything really prepared me for it,” Capita says. “Now we are at a point where have to reevaluate our entire structure. The company is a tool to use to give students hands-on experience, but now this tool has outgrown us to a magnitude to where it’s hard for us to keep up with it. We need more people with expertise to help us get to the level we see it going. We need people with manufacturing experience and with distribution and marketing expertise to take us there but at the same time [to] maintain the educational integrity of the program.”

Cartwright calls it a true growth business.
“It's out of the proof of concept stage and out of the limited commercialization phase,” he says. “Now it’s getting to mass commercialization. One area I have been talking to the students about is, 'How are you going to finance all this commercialization?' And part of the answer is teaching them about lines of credit in addition to equity financing and grant funding.”

Meeting new challenges
Balancing growth with maintaining the core focus of the program is a challenge, but it also expands the students’ learning opportunities and business experience. It was the students who requested the meeting with Publix Super Markets executives at its Lakeland headquarters, where they delivered their pitch to expand Taste of Immokalee’s presence in their stores.
They did so fearlessly, Capita says.

“What I love about working with students is that they are innovative,” she says. “They are risk-takers, and they think outside the box.”

They also must execute. The new Publix demand alone requires a six-fold increase in production of the company’s six signature products. It also means greater marketing efforts to create more demand.

“To show how these kids are committed, they realize now that getting their product into 240 Publix stores was not the hard part,” Capita says. “Getting people to buy them is. If they don’t buy them, the stores don’t reorder, and we lose that shelf space.”

As production increases and deliveries grow, supply line logistics are increasingly complex. While Taste of Immokalee outsources co-packaging, Francoise, who serves on the company’s 14-member college advisory board, has bigger ideas.

“I see having our own packing plant in Immokalee and more good jobs created there,” she says. “Taste of Immokalee is one of the treasures of Immokalee, and I see people coming from around the world to learn about what we have done there and how we did it.”
The products

Sauces
Chipotle BBQ $4.99
Mandarin Tangerine BBQ $4.99
Habañero Hot $3.99
Serrano Hot $3.99
Salsas
Fire-Roasted Tomato & Jalapeño $5.99
Fire-Roasted Tomato, Pineapple & Mango $5.99

All products available at tasteofimmokalee.com

The students have embarked on developing an ambassador program to take Taste of Immokalee statewide. “We’d like to partner with other high schools throughout Florida and teach them how to be promoters of our product, which will provide them with service hours and other incentives,” Capita says. “The kids came up with the idea of creating strategies beyond Collier to sell their products.”

In turn, Taste of Immokalee also opens the door to opportunities beyond Collier for the students themselves. With her two years of experience in establishing the company and college degree in hand, Francoise says she wants to live abroad and make a career of the ministry and public speaking. “Somewhere along the way, I became a public speaker, and I couldn’t believe that people started paying me to speak at events,” she says. “I spoke at a panel a few months ago, and someone there asked me to give a commencement address for a high school in the Bronx.”

Francoise participates in monthly conference calls with Taste of Immokalee and plans to continue to contribute regardless of where in the world she is. “I see a future where this is not just a model for a student program but to implement programs like this to benefit other migrant communities,” Francoise says.

Cartwright likens Taste of Immokalee to more famous B-corps, such as Ben & Jerry’s and Newman’s Own. Be disruptive enough and it, too, might capture the attention of major food companies. It’s a business education not available in a textbook and typically not to high school students in disadvantaged communities.
​
“It’s all based on the belief that it’s not a handout, but a hand up,” Cartwright says. “It’s the fulfillment of the American dream and the free enterprise system that our country was founded upon. It is the best expression of the God-given talents and skill sets you have that can be expressed through business success.”

High honors
Students behind Taste of Immokalee have found success after high school. The list includes:
• Elizabeth Martinez, Arcadia University (2019),  Human Resources Recruiter, Avow Hospice Home of Collier County
• Francisco Cuevas, Arcadia University (2019),  Accounting Department, Moorings Park, Naples
• Alfredo Villalobos Perez, Grinell College, (2019) University of North Carolina Medical School
• Regine Francois Columbia University, (2019) Ministry and public speaking, Columbia University
• Dulce Mendoza, Arcadia University, (2018) Public Health Associate and Public Health Field Officer, Centers for Disease Control, Guam
• Edwin Herard, University of Florida, (2019), Working in the financial sector

ConnexPay will use growth capital to advance technology and expand to markets beyond online travel instant payment services.
by: Business Observer StaffNAPLES — Electronic payment provider ConnexPay, a startup fintech company co-headquartered in Atlanta and Naples, raised a Series A funding round of $7 million led by BIP Capital, one of the Southeast’s most active venture investors. 
Launched in 2017, ConnexPay works by matching payments from travel buyers to travel suppliers in real time. The technology reduces risk, eliminating the need for online travel agencies, tour operators and consolidators to pre-fund payments or obtain lines of credit.
Additionally, ConnexPay has announced it is expanding the issuance of Visa virtual cards in the travel industry. By collaborating with Visa’s issuing and acquiring financial institution partners, ConnexPay enables its customers to use Visa single-use virtual credit cards to enable payments to travel suppliers, according to a statement. 
“Collaborating with Visa to help expand issuance of Visa virtual cards provides a substantial boost to ConnexPay,” says ConnexPay founder and CEO Bob Kaufman in the statement. “Our intention is to be a game-changer for travel intermediaries and our successful funding round launches us one step closer to making this mission a reality." 
The growth capital provided by the Series A funding will be used by ConnexPay to further technology development, increase personnel and expand into new markets. 

Naples startup processes millions of dollars in transactions per day with a one-of-a-kind fintech model. Market education is the next hill to climb.
by: Andrew Warfield Lee-Collier EditorBefore Jacob Eisen begins to explain the business model of ConnexPay, he apologizes for having to “dumb it down." Not because the listener may not understand it, but because even his fintech colleagues often don’t.
“Our model is more confusing to people in our own industry, and it’s because what we are doing is not being done by anyone else in the world,” says Eisen, 36, partner and COO of the company co-headquartered in Naples and Atlanta. “We are the first truly combined merchant acquiring and issuing card solution in the world that we are aware of, initially focused within the online travel marketplace.”
'Our model is more confusing to people in our own industry, and it’s because what we are doing is not being done by anyone else in the world.' ConnexPay COO Jacob Eisen
In short, what that means is ConnexPay — launched in 2017 in part with a $355,000 initial investment by Naples-based Tamiami Angel Funds — provides a financial bridge between customers of e-commerce intermediaries, such as online travel agencies, and their travel providers, such as hotels, cruise lines and airlines. ConnexPay's technology eliminates pain points, particularly in providing the intermediary real-time access to funds needed to pay travel providers. That pain, without ConnexPay, says the company, is long: incoming credit card settlement times can be 24 to 48 hours — longer over weekends and holidays.
The ConnexPay software also ensures the travel intermediary fully pays vendors for customer orders placed through their platform. ConnexPay customers — intermediaries such as online travel agencies, tour operators and consolidators with annual sales from $100 million into the billions — can then save millions of dollars annually in merchant fees. That frees up cash reserves, which many banks require to mitigate perceived risk.
“(Banks) need tens or hundreds of millions in credit to float those payments,” says Eisen. “The intermediary has to pay the hotel or airline on their customers’ behalf. We are giving our e-commerce customers real-time access to their customers' funds so they can pay their suppliers and they don't need a line of credit or their own cash flow.”
Bob Kaufman is founder and CEO of ConnexPay.How did they do it? The technology, which took some 18 months to build, is based on the foundation of relationships between Eisen’s 48-year-old partner, CEO and founder Bob Kaufman, and his 20 years of payments industry experience with U.S. Bank and its subsidiary, Elavon. Kaufman was previously the CFO of the payments division at U.S. Bank, before he managed the bank’s virtual card division. His former boss is an investor and director in ConnexPay.
“Bob had customers in the industry who approached him with this problem the intermediaries have,” says Eisen.
The partners then spent more than a year cultivating relationships with major financial institutions to back the transactions — even as they spent millions developing the software that seamlessly matches intermediaries’ payments from clients to their suppliers.
ConnexPay is backed by more than $7 million in venture capital from two well-known institutional investors, BIP Capital in Atlanta and an as-yet unannounced second investor. ConnexPay is an issuer of both Visa and Mastercard through direct brand partnership agreements and has partnered with industry leaders for core processing and fraud detection capabilities such as TSYS, Kount and Marqeta. Clients, including airline consolidators, tour operators and online travel agencies, represent millions of transactions per year and more than $10 billion in annual volume. Unlike intermediaries such as Travelocity, airline consolidators are authorized to sell airlines' tickets directly to customers.
ConnexPay earns transaction revenue on both the processing and credit issuing ends. “Today, only the biggest of travel agencies out there don’t have credit issues with their customers,” says Eisen. “Because we are playing both sides, we can lose money on one side of it if we make money on the other. Other credit issuers out there are just competing against each other, but because we have both sides of the transaction we are able to find large customers in both the U.S. and Canada.
Behind its brief track record of success since going live in late 2018, ConnexPay is scheduled to pitch a “top five” online travel provider to win more business. While not disclosing revenues, Eisen reports the company grew 100% month-over-month in April and May and is processing millions of dollars each day in total transaction volume. Eisen expects the company to be cash flow-positive this year. 
Between its Naples and Atlanta offices, ConnexPay now employs 20, but is actively recruiting for both offices. It’s also planning to extend the platform to other e-commerce intermediaries outside the travel industry.
“Our solution works well throughout marketplace of e-commerce,” Eisen says. “The Amazons, Walmarts, Targets and online ticket brokers are all verticals where there is high volume and the companies are acting as intermediaries. We are working on that as we speak.”

​Investors with Tamiami Angel Funds were among the first to recognize the potential for the Naples-based company’s novel shoulder-surgery technology.
 
NAPLES, Fla. (May 21, 2019) — Catalyst OrthoScience Inc. recently raised $12.7 million in venture capital financing, validating the decision by early investors including Tamiami Angel Funds to back the Naples-based medical device company three years ago.
 
A review of the venture capital database PitchBook reveals that the recent $12.7 million investment led by River Cities Capital Funds for Catalyst was the largest venture capital sum raised for any company headquartered in Naples, according to Timothy Cartwright, partner at Fifth Avenue Family Office and chairman of Tamiami Angel Funds.
 
Tamiami Angel Fund II was the lead investor in Catalyst’s first round of venture-capital financing in 2016 with an initial investment of $930,000. In total, investors with Tamiami Angel Funds have invested $1.4 million in Catalyst.
 
“Catalyst is a true homegrown success story as our investors recognized the innovative technology created by Naples orthopedic surgeon Dr. Steven Goldberg,” says Cartwright. “With this latest round of financing, Catalyst is well on its way to becoming the global medical-device company we expect it to become.”
 
Tamiami Angel Funds now consist of three member-managed funds that allow high-net-worth individuals and families to invest in promising early stage and expansion-stage companies located in the U.S., with a preference for those in the state of Florida.
 
“Funding local companies such as Catalyst helps diversify Southwest Florida’s economy by providing the link between entrepreneurs like Steven Goldberg and Naples investors,” says Cartwright. “The region’s need for economic diversification during the last recession was the driving force behind the creation of Tamiami Angel Funds 12 years ago.”
 
Designed by surgeons for surgeons, the Catalyst CSR™ Total Shoulder System is a disruptive technology because of its unique approach to shoulder replacement. The humeral component replicates the natural shape of the shoulder more closely than current shoulder replacement implants. In addition, the device uses patented surgical instruments and a surgical technique that requires less bone removal than current procedures for shoulder replacement. Today, the Catalyst CSR system has been used successfully in more than 1,000 surgeries with excellent clinical results.
 
In a statement on May 14 announcing the $12.7 million investment by River Cities, Catalyst Chairman and CEO Brian K. Hutchison said: “This funding will be instrumental in fueling rapid growth for Catalyst through increased inventory, expanded distribution and new product development. The additional funding will allow us to enhance company infrastructure and hire additional talent to support our growth and to bring our novel approach to total shoulder arthroplasty to surgeons and their patients.”
 
You can read the full text of Catalyst’s announcement on the company’s website at www.CatalystOrtho.com, click on the “Events & News” tab. For more information about Tamiami Angel Funds, visit www.tamiamiangels.com.
 
About Tamiami Angel Funds
Tamiami Angel Fund I, Tamiami Angel Fund II, and Tamiami Angel Fund III are member-managed funds that allow high-net-worth individuals and families to invest in promising early stage and expansion-stage companies located in the U.S., with a preference to those in the state of Florida. The funds are members of the Angel Capital Association and the Florida Venture Forum. For more information, visit www.tamiamiangels.com.
 
About Catalyst OrthoScience Inc.
Catalyst OrthoScience develops and markets surgical implants that make orthopedic surgery less invasive and more efficient for both surgeons and patients. Catalyst was founded in 2014 by orthopedic surgeon Steven Goldberg, M.D., who saw the need to make shoulder replacement surgery less invasive and give patients a more natural-feeling shoulder after surgery. 
 
The company's first offering, the Catalyst CSR Total Shoulder System, represents the next evolution in total shoulder arthroplasty. The Catalyst CSR is a single-tray, bone-preserving total shoulder arthroplasty system containing a precision elliptical humeral head and less invasive glenoid component, using specialized ergonomic instrumentation designed for consistent anatomic joint line restoration and glenoid insertion. The Catalyst CSR system can be used in both inpatient and outpatient settings and was cleared for use by the FDA in 2016.
 
Catalyst OrthoScience has a growing portfolio of 10 granted U.S. patents with several more pending nationally and internationally.  The company is headquartered in Naples, Fla., and its products are available across the U.S. For additional information on the company, please visit www.CatalystOrtho.com.

Tamiami Angel Funds offers young, growing companies something more than money. List includes intellectual capital in business acumen and mentorship.
by: Andrew Warfield Lee-Collier EditorAmid the gloom and doom of the post 9-11 economic downtown, some angels in Southwest Florida rose to the occasion.
Angel investors, that is.
In 2004, about a year after Timothy Cartwright moved to Naples to work with an investment bank based in Chicago, he founded the Angel Investment Network — now called the Tamiami Florida Angel Funds. The goal? Recruit high-wealth investors to fund early stage companies primarily in the emerging technology space. 
Today, nearing its 15-year anniversary, Tamiami Angel Funds has some $12.7 million invested in 20 companies across three fund groups of about 40 members each, the diverse group of active and retired executives, entrepreneurs and business owners providing financial and intellectual capital to help young companies succeed. Of those 20 companies, three have exited the fund and one filed for dissolution.
“This was never done here before,” says Cartwright, chairman of Tamiami Angel Fund. “And at the time everyone was licking their wounds. I ended up talking to 600 high-wealth individuals and found 49 to put up $2 million of capital.”
And Tamiami Angel Funds was born, with the dual purpose of supplying high-wealth individuals the advantages of an accomplished, multi-disciplinary group of successful investors, and young companies ready to grow with much-needed financial and intellectual capital.
Guiding a room full of hard-charging, type A personalities accustomed to succeeding by having things their way does present challenges — though meetings and discussions are largely collegial at the general membership level. That is accomplished, Cartwright says, by combining a democratic process among the membership’s monthly meetings, with intensive committee work.
“It’s highly risky, so getting a group of 40 high-net worth types of individuals who have always been used to buying right and getting their way to cooperatively work together and decide to invest in a format where nine of 10 times they will be wrong is extremely difficult,” says Cartwright, also a partner with Fifth Avenue Advisors, a Napes investment firm. “There are situations where there are strong opinion and people can see things differently.”
Management matters
The refined, multi-step process of picking companies appears smooth now. But it hasn’t always been that way.
One example is the genesis of a procedural change from Fund 1, which like Fund 2 is now fully deployed. At the time, final approval required unanimous agreement by the executive committee, which on at least one occasion left the decision on behalf of the entire group in the hands of one member. That has since been modified. 
Fund members will evaluate as many as 450 proposals per year and invest in four to eight of them. Successful candidates must carry marketplace validation, which can include one or more of letters of intent, purchase orders, subscriptions, download data, crowdfunding campaigns and, most importantly, the promise of revenue.
The companies must also have solid management teams.
“In real estate, the adage is ‘location, location, location,’” he says. “The adage in early stage investment is ‘management team, management team, management team.’ It is a highly scrutinized component in all our deals that we consider what we call the execution team, taking the emphasis off managing something and orient them toward execution.”

Despite the scrutiny, not all investments are successful. To underscore lessons learned from risk, Cartwright, for example, says Tamiami Angel Funds now shies away from restaurants.
“One of the investments that we ended up losing more money on than we returned was a restaurant concept,” he says. “While we will invest in food and beverage companies, it would be very difficult to get our group to ever invest in a single restaurant or a chain of restaurants after our first foray into that.”
Exit strategiesInvestments, in general, are made with an eye toward a seven-year horizon. Cartwright says the average return on a successful investment by angel funds nationwide is about 22%.
In 2017, there was an exit in Fund 3 by Durham, N.C.-based iScribes, when the electronic medical documentation company founded in 2014 was acquired by Nuance Corp. for a non-disclosed amount. The deal yielded a 32% return to Tamiami Angel Funds, which invested $265,000.
ConnexPay, co-headquartered in Naples and Minneapolis, could be among the next success stories. The financial technology company secured $355,000 from Tamiami Angel Funds to complete development of its technology. Co-founder and chief operating officer Jacob Eisen says the firm's program streamlines the process between virtual payments and recipients while providing real-time data of the difference between customer transactions and outgoing payments to end providers, among other functions.
Eisen, 35, of Naples, and CEO Robert Kaufman, 40, of Minneapolis, have backgrounds in virtual payment and investment banking. Eisen says he and Kaufman could have secured growth capital elsewhere, but they chose to pitch Tamiami Angel Funds in large part for the ancillary benefits it offers.
“We had a lot of places we could have gotten funding, so raising money was not an issue for us,” says Eisen. “One thing we have been most impressed by is their desire to help in other ways aside from capital and managerial guidance. They have been willing to roll up their sleeves and connect us with potential customers. Some of them invested personal money outside the fund, and that has allowed us to expand our potential customer base.”
Investor John Kraft is an example of a fund member who brings specific experience to the table. A member of Fund 3, he is vice president of investor relations and strategy for ACI Worldwide, also an electronic payment company. Varied business experience, he says, provides for an effective group dynamic.
“We have some good debate. We have people from different locations, industries and expertise and certain people look to bring different insights into the deals,” says Kraft. “Someone from a different industry can think outside the box a little, and it results in a healthy discussion.”
ConnexPay met one of the most significant thresholds for investment — a revenue stream in place even though the software going live is still two to three months away. It has signed contracts with travel agencies representing more than $1.5 billion in annualized hotel and air sold.
“This reflects more than $5 million of expected net revenue to ConnexPay,” says Eisen. “Additionally, we have letters of intent or strong indications for another $3 billion or so of annualized spend, which would get us to over $15 million of net revenue. We are a high-margin business on a net revenue basis, so roughly 65% of the net revenue is expected to fall to net income.”
The investment will benefit the local economy as ConnexPay grows. Eisen says Naples is the ideal location for the support staff that will be needed. The company plans to soon announce a collaboration with Visa to increase issuance of virtual cards within the travel industry.
“And this before we’ve processed a single live transaction,” Eisen adds.
Hunting for gazellesConnexPay has the potential to become a gazelle — an uber fast-growing company that maintains annual growth rate of at least 20%. Tamiami Angel Funds is always on safari for early stage gazelles that can benefit from more than the financial investment in provides. 
“I would say our tagline is growth and intellectual capital,” says Cartwright. “The investment of intellectual capital is the mentorship that can come from our members who are former business executives, titans of industry and entrepreneurs who have created and sold successful, privately owned businesses. You can make magic happen when you can combine money and mentorship."
Florida-based companies that have received Tamiami Angel funding include 71 Pounds in Fort Lauderdale; Catalyst OrthoScience in Naples; Fracture in Gainesville; Fresh Meal Plan in Boca Raton; MassiveU in Naples; PlusOne Solutions in Orlando; Streann in Miami; and Senzari in Miami/Francisco. Schoolflow, which dissolved in 2017, was based in Orlando. Other investments are in companies now located in California, Rhode Island, Michigan, North Carolina, Virginia, New York and Connecticut. 
Tamiami Angel Funds is not a closed group. New members are considered — providing candidates meet the threshold of at least $1 million net worth, excluding primary residence, and at least $200,000 in adjusted gross income for each of the past two years and the expectation of the same in the current year. 
“There is always room for more,” says Cartwright. “The more diverse our members are from all aspects — gender, race, industry, nationality, ethnicity — the better investment decisions we will make because we can call upon that diverse community vetting before we invest.”