​Southwest Florida angel investors committed $300,000 to Galen Data, a medical-device software firm.
 
NAPLES, Fla. (July 19, 2021) — Angel investors from Southwest Florida invested in Galen Data, a company that has developed software to securely connect medical devices online.
 
Members of Tamiami Angel Fund IV invested $300,000 in Galen Data, the third investment for the members of Tamiami Angel’s newest fund. Galen Data, based in Houston, Tex., provides a turnkey software platform to connect devices to the internet cloud that is compliant with strict privacy laws governing patient information.
 
“The firm’s principals have decades of experience in the medical device industry and a deep understanding of software compliance when it comes to health care privacy, so we are excited to be part of this promising young company,” says Timothy Cartwright, partner of Fifth Avenue Family Office and chairman of Tamiami Angel Funds. 
 
In addition to cloud connectivity, Galen provides data analysis that helps health care professionals and their patients visualize and interpret health information using dashboards they can customize. Subsequently, data can be securely exported for further evaluation thanks to encryption and cyber security monitoring that complies with U.S. and European data-protection regulations.
 
Galen recently announced a partnership with a Denver, CO-based company which produces an automated external defibrillator. Galen’s cloud connectivity in the device allows it to automatically alert first responders and send them the patient’s location upon Spinocerebellar ataxia detection. By accelerating the commercialization of this life-saving emergency medical device, Galen is assisting in saving the 12 million Americans at high risk of Spinocerebellar ataxia.
“Galen’s medical device cloud platform allows companies to start small and scale as they grow because they can configure their own cloud solutions to match the specific needs of their medical device,” explains Chris DuPont, Galen Data’s CEO. You can read more about the company and schedule a demo at www.galendata.com.
 
Angel investing is an important source of financial support and mentoring for new and emerging-growth businesses such as Galen Data. “We appreciate that the members of the Tamiami Angel Fund have recognized the value we bring to the industry thanks to our software technology,” says DuPont.
 
Angel investors 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.  

 
IMMOKALEE, FL (June 9, 2021) – Taste of Immokalee is rapidly expanding.  With this growth comes the hurdle that many small businesses struggle to overcome: the ability to finance the expansion.  As avid supporters of Taste of Immokalee, the Tamiami Angels have made a generous donation of $100,000 to help with this expansion. 
 
In 2016, a southwest Florida based group of investors known as Tamiami Angel Fund Investors (“TAFI”) was introduced to Taste of Immokalee (“TOI” or the “Company”).  TAFI was impressed by the B-Corp structure and vision of TOI and expressed its desire to help.  As a result of TAFI’s efforts, a unique partnership was forged with the Community Foundation of Collier County (“CFCC” or “Foundation”) to launch the Taste of Immokalee Social Investment Fund.  Donations to CFCC can be directed to be “invested” in TOI.  Through the TOI Social Investment Fund, investors are donating the shares in the company purchased with their charitable gift to the Community Foundation of Collier County.  As a TOI shareholder, the Foundation could benefit from the sale of those shares if Taste of Immokalee takes off and the Company is sold.  The proceeds from a sale would be reinvested by the CFCC to further local economic development and entrepreneurship, especially those in Immokalee.
 
Taste of Immokalee is set up as a “benefit corporation” or B-Corp, a hybrid between a nonprofit and for-profit company.  It seeks profits and pays taxes, but it has a mission for public benefit, which in its case means giving back to Immokalee through donations.
 
Nationally, the numbers prove that the rising popularity of impact investing is not just anecdotal.  In 2020, according to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, the size of the impact investment market grew by an astonishing 42.4% in the last year — from $502 billion to $715 billion in assets under management.  Through the leadership of the Tamiami Angels, CFCC, and TOI, local Southwest Florida investors can participate in this popular investment style and make a direct investment through the CFCC.  “While the Tamiami Angels impact investment was the first of its kind for Southwest Florida in 2016, the triple win structure of impact investing has caught fire on a national level”, said Timothy J. Cartwright, chairman of the Tamiami Angel Fund Investors.  “Today, impact investing is ubiquitous, however, local opportunities can be hard to find and fund.  This investment vehicle creates a turnkey approach for local individuals to directly fund and, on a firsthand basis, witness the community impact.”
 
To date, TAFI has raised $115,358.50 and has donated this amount to CFCC for investment in TOI.  In addition, TAFI has been active in trying to raise the level of awareness to this type of socially responsible impact investing in our community with TOI being the direct beneficiary.  Timothy J. Cartwright, also Chairman of the Taste of Immokalee Board, said “Tamiami Angels are proud to support Taste of Immokalee and their mission of teaching confidence and leadership skills to high school students.  Over the years, the students we meet as timid freshmen grow into high achieving and outgoing college-bound seniors.  It is a thrill to see the Taste of Immokalee program awaken the entrepreneurial spirit inside of each student as they leverage their God given talents to pursue personal and professional development goals.”
 
Taste of Immokalee has been more successful than we ever dreamed possible, yet we know there is so much more potential to unleash – in both the business and the countless young lives that are being transformed through this program.  In 2019, the company brought on a group of exceptional executives to the board with proven success growing enterprises, particularly in areas relevant to guide Taste of Immokalee’s next evolution of growth such as multi-channel retail distribution, geographic expansions, and product innovation.  “If we could raise up to half a million dollars, that would take a lot of pressure off by allowing us to purchase inventory and do some real marketing.  More money also is needed to involve more students and to pay them for all the hours they work.  Some of the students in the program work second jobs because they need money to help support their families and to go to college” said Marie Capita, the TOI Executive Director.
 
“Anytime we can help high school students get real world job training to better prepare them for today’s workforce is always a win/win for both the students and future employers.  The Taste of Immokalee program has successfully trained local students on all aspects of managing their own real-time business and created quality consumer products in the meantime.” 
 
Interested investors should call 239-262-6300 or visit the “Contact Us” section on www.tamiamiangels.com.
 
About Taste of Immokalee
Taste of Immokalee is a benefit corporation founded in 2014 by Immokalee-based One by One Leadership Foundation. What began as a seed of an idea by a group of local high school students has grown into a social enterprise that creates and sells specialty food products representing the unique blend of Immokalee’s culture and rich agriculture. Taste of Immokalee is committed to providing students with hands-on experience in all aspects of business, with a focus on giving back. Profits are returned to the community of Immokalee to benefit youth programs and alleviate hunger and poverty. Learn more at www.TasteofImmokalee.com.
 
About Community Foundation of Collier County
The Community Foundation of Collier County, now in its 35th year, is a tax-exempt, public, charitable organization established in 1985 to increase and focus on local private philanthropy. Today, the Community Foundation of Collier County manages more than 750 funds, collaborates with hundreds of nonprofits, holds over $280 million in assets and has distributed over $212 million in grants to nonprofit organizations and community programs. The Community Foundation of Collier County is one of Florida’s fastest-growing community foundations. For good. Forever. Learn more at cfcollier.org or call 239-649-5000.

Tamiami Angel Funds III and IV invested in Wellbox, a Jacksonville, Fla.-based health technology company that helps people who suffer from chronic illnesses.
 
NAPLES, Fla. (March 17, 2021) — Tamiami Angel Funds III and IV invested $950,000 in Wellbox, a health care technology company that is accelerating the transition to virtual care driven by medical providers who have recently adopted remote management mandates in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
Together with the investment Tamiami Angel Fund III made last year, the combined total investment of $1.575MM makes Wellbox the second-largest investment of any single company across the portfolio of the Naples, Fla.-based Tamiami Angel Funds.
 
Founded in Jacksonville, Fla., in 2015, Wellbox delivers engaging virtual healthcare experiences that improve clinical outcomes and positively impact individuals and the healthcare system, as a whole.  They work predominantly with high-risk populations, including those with chronic conditions, who require high-touch clinical care.
 
“While COVID-19 boosted the demand for Wellbox’s services, we believe the company will continue to be the market leader in the management of chronic diseases after the pandemic subsides.  That’s because they deliver superior clinical results by making innovative technologies easy to use for experienced medical professionals to remotely consult with and treat their patients,” says Timothy Cartwright, partner of Fifth Avenue Family Office and chairman of Tamiami Angel Funds.
 
“We are dedicated to making a profound, positive impact on the healthcare system by providing virtual care solutions that increase access to care, improve clinical outcomes, and decrease healthcare costs,” says Nathanial Findlay, chief executive officer and founder of Wellbox.  “We are thankful for Tamiami’s continued partnership, support, and confidence, which will help us to achieve this mission.”
 
Recent analysis has concluded that, since 2015, Wellbox has helped its partner practices lower emergency room visits and hospitalizations by 60%, increased preventative care measures such as flu shots by 50% and lowered participant costs to Medicare by 10% to 15%.
 
“The COVID-19 pandemic was a catalyst for change by ushering in a new era for telehealth-based medicine and Wellbox is on the leading edge of this powerful trend that is here to stay,” says Cartwright.
 
Angel investing is an important source of financial support and mentoring for new and emerging-growth businesses such as Wellbox.  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 serves high-net-worth entrepreneurs and their families with multigenerational wealth within a multifamily office setting.  For more information, visit www.tamiamiangels.com. 
 
About Wellbox
Wellbox is a population health management company focused on improving outcomes in chronically ill populations. Wellbox provides comprehensive preventative and remote care management solutions to high-risk, high-cost populations. By leveraging experienced registered nurses and cutting-edge technologies, Wellbox is able to drive superior clinical and financial outcomes, including a 5.6% decrease in total cost of care. Wellbox is committed to creating positive healthcare experiences, increasing engagement by empowering people to do well, be well, and live well. For more information, visit www.wellbox.care.

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.
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“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