Miami Startup Atlas
Where the startups actually are. An interactive, district-by-district map of greater Miami's company clusters — from the cruise lines, Burger King and the universities that built the old economy to the 2020 'How can I help?' migration: Citadel's Brickell headquarters, Founders Fund's office, OpenStore in Wynwood, Kaseya's tower — and the arena that wore FTX's name until the exchange collapsed. Who sits where, what they sell, when each cluster took root, and the stories behind the pins.
Three moves, then explore
15 companies, 10 districts, one bayfront metro
Every pin is a company or institution founded in — or headquartered in — greater Miami (Broward included). Colors are clusters. A city that imported its tech scene in one pandemic winter is now deciding what to build with it.
Schematic map — district shapes and pin positions are simplified for readability, not navigation. Pin = founding or HQ district.
Carnival Corporation
Doral · est. 1972 · Cruise, Travel & Food GiantsOne used ship became the world's largest cruise company
Royal Caribbean Group
PortMiami · est. 1968 · Cruise, Travel & Food GiantsThe cruise line that overlooks its own ships
Burger King
Blue Lagoon · est. 1954 · Cruise, Travel & Food GiantsThe Whopper was born in Miami
Citrix (Cloud Software Group)
Broward (Fort Lauderdale) · est. 1989 · Enterprise SoftwareThe ex-IBM team that made remote work run
Kaseya
Brickell · est. 2000 · Enterprise SoftwareThe IT-software giant that renamed the arena
Magic Leap
Broward (Fort Lauderdale) · est. 2010 · AR & HardwareThe cautionary pin: billions raised for AR goggles
Chewy
Broward (Fort Lauderdale) · est. 2011 · E-commercePet food by mail, with handwritten cards
OpenStore
Wynwood · est. 2021 · E-commerceThe migration's flagship startup
Citadel
Brickell · est. 2022 · Wall Street SouthThe hedge-fund giant that moved its HQ to Brickell
Founders Fund (Miami)
Brickell · est. 2021 · Venture CapitalSilicon Valley's contrarian fund planted a flag
FTX Arena → Kaseya Center
Downtown · est. 2021 · CryptoThe cautionary pin: the name came off the building
University of Miami
Coral Gables · est. 1925 · Universities & EventsThe 1925 campus with the medical engine
FIU
Westchester & FIU · est. 1965 · Universities & EventsA Hispanic-serving engineering pipeline
Miami Dade College
Downtown · est. 1960 · Universities & EventsAmerica's largest college, retraining for tech
eMerge Americas
Miami Beach · est. 2014 · Universities & EventsThe tech conference that predated the hype
When each cluster took root
Miami wasn't built in one wave. Each decade stacked a new industry on the last one's founders, capital and exits.
The University of Miami (1925) opens in the land boom; Burger King (1954) is born in Miami; FIU (1965) and Miami Dade College (1960) build the workforce; Royal Caribbean (1968) and Carnival (1972) make the city the world's cruise capital. Miami's economy is tourism, trade and Latin American finance.
Citrix (1989) settles in Fort Lauderdale and makes remote desktops a global standard; Kaseya (2000) builds IT-management software and later makes Brickell its home. South Florida acquires an enterprise-software base — quiet, profitable and mostly invisible to the venture world.
Magic Leap (2010) raises billions in Plantation; Chewy (2011) builds pet e-commerce and sells to PetSmart for $3.35B; eMerge Americas (2014) and the Knight Foundation's grants nurture a local scene. Miami is a promising regional ecosystem, not yet a national story.
The pandemic and a mayor's tweet start a migration: Founders Fund opens in Miami, OpenStore (2021) launches in Wynwood, FTX buys the arena's name (2021), MiamiCoin launches, bitcoin conferences fill the convention centre. Miami's venture funding and profile jump in a single year.
Citadel moves its global HQ to Brickell (2022), banks and funds follow, and Kaseya renames the arena (2023) after FTX's collapse. Funding normalises and seed deals fall; GSER 2025 ranks Miami №22 (from №16) and flags an AI gap. The capital stayed — the question is whether Miami can now grow its own companies.
In December 2020 a venture capitalist tweeted about moving Silicon Valley to Miami; Mayor Francis Suarez replied 'How can I help?' The exchange became the slogan of a migration of founders, funds and remote workers during the pandemic winter.
FTX paid for a 19-year, $135 million deal to name the Miami Heat's arena in 2021. After the exchange collapsed in November 2022, Miami-Dade terminated it; Kaseya's name went up in April 2023.
Citadel announced in 2022 that it was moving its global headquarters from Chicago to Miami and bought an entire Brickell Bay Drive block for a new tower. Other funds and banks followed, turning Brickell into a finance cluster.
Magic Leap, in Plantation, raised billions on mixed-reality demos and reached a reported $6.4B valuation in 2019 — then its valuation was reported at $450M by mid-2020 after the consumer headset struggled. It now sells enterprise AR.
Eight clusters, eight origin stories
Where each industry concentrated, when it started, and why it stuck. Open a file.
🛳️ Cruise, Travel & Food Giants›
Miami's old economy is global and consumer-facing. Carnival (1972) grew from one used ship into the world's largest cruise company; Royal Caribbean (1968) builds the biggest passenger ships ever made from Dodge Island; Burger King (1954) put the Whopper on the world's menus from the airport district. Add Lennar, Ryder and the Latin American regional headquarters in Coral Gables (unpinned), and the city's large companies are now its biggest potential customers for AI, data and logistics startups.
🖥️ Enterprise Software›
South Florida had enterprise software long before the migration. Citrix built remote-desktop technology from Fort Lauderdale and was taken private for $16.5B in 2022 as part of Cloud Software Group; Kaseya made Brickell its home, bought Datto for $6.2B and put its name on the arena. Ultimate Software (Weston) and a bench of IT and security firms (unpinned) complete a cluster that rarely makes headlines but employs thousands.
🥽 AR & Hardware›
Magic Leap is the cluster and the warning. It raised billions from Google, Alibaba and Saudi Arabia's PIF on mixed-reality demos, reached a reported $6.4B valuation, then saw that reported value fall to ~$450M by mid-2020 as its consumer headset struggled. It survives as an enterprise AR company — and South Florida's most expensive lesson about shipping before scaling.
🛍️ E-commerce›
E-commerce is the region's most successful startup category. Chewy turned pet supplies into a customer-service brand, sold to PetSmart for $3.35B and listed in 2019; OpenStore, founded by Keith Rabois in 2021, became the migration's flagship, buying and running Shopify stores from Wynwood at a $970M valuation. Between them they show both the durable and the speculative sides of Miami's commerce scene.
📈 Wall Street South›
Citadel's 2022 move — Ken Griffin's hedge fund and market maker relocating their global headquarters from Chicago and assembling a Brickell Bay Drive block for a supertall tower — anchored 'Wall Street South'. Other funds, banks and family offices followed, bringing quant engineers and capital to the bayfront. The finance cluster is the most durable result of the migration years.
💼 Venture Capital›
Venture capital arrived as a migration. Founders Fund opened a Brickell office; a16z, SoftBank and others hired or opened in the city; Atomic's venture studio and dozens of smaller funds followed. Some partners have since moved on, but the capital base is real: the metro raised $2.77B in venture funding in 2024 with larger late-stage rounds, even as seed deals fell.
₿ Crypto›
Crypto was the migration's loudest chapter. FTX named the arena ($135M, 2021), the city launched MiamiCoin, and bitcoin conferences filled the convention centre — then FTX's November 2022 collapse took its name off the building and much of the hype with it. Crypto firms and conferences remain, but the cluster is now a cautionary syllabus as much as an industry.
🎓 Universities & Events›
The talent base is local and bilingual. The University of Miami's research and medical school, FIU's large Hispanic-serving engineering pipeline and Miami Dade College's tech retraining programmes feed companies; eMerge Americas (since 2014) and the Knight Foundation's long investment in the scene built the community before the migration. Startup Genome's 2025 AI warning makes these institutions the key to whether Miami grows its own bench.
Why startups cluster in Miami
Strip away the art-deco postcard and Miami's startup thesis is a single sentence: this ecosystem was imported in a pandemic winter, and the question is what it grows into now. In December 2020 a venture capitalist mused about moving Silicon Valley to Miami and the mayor replied 'How can I help?' Within a year Founders Fund had a Brickell office, Keith Rabois had founded OpenStore in Wynwood, FTX had its name on the downtown arena and bitcoin conferences filled Miami Beach. Few cities have ever re-branded their economy so quickly.
The migration landed on a real foundation. South Florida already had Citrix's enterprise-software base in Fort Lauderdale, Chewy's e-commerce success, Kaseya's growing IT-software empire, eMerge Americas' conference, and global consumer companies — Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Burger King — run from the airport, the port and Doral. The universities supplied a bilingual workforce: FIU's engineers, Miami Dade College's retraining programmes, the University of Miami's research. What the migration added was capital and visibility.
The capital proved durable; the hype did not. Citadel's 2022 decision to move its global headquarters to Brickell — and Ken Griffin's purchase of a full Brickell Bay Drive block for a supertall tower — anchored 'Wall Street South', and other funds followed. But FTX's November 2022 collapse took its name off the arena; MiamiCoin slumped; Magic Leap's earlier fall from a reported $6.4B valuation still haunts the region's hardware ambitions. The metro still raised $2.77B in 2024, with larger late-stage rounds, even as seed deals roughly halved.
Startup Genome's 2025 verdict is the honest scorecard: №22 globally, down from №16, with an explicit warning that AI-native company creation is well below where it should be. Miami's assets are distinctive — Brickell's finance cluster, the gateway to Latin America, low taxes, a bilingual talent pool and corporations hungry for technology. The test of the next five years is whether those assets produce Miami-born companies at scale, rather than Miami offices of companies born elsewhere.
District cheat sheet
| District | What it's known for |
|---|---|
| Broward (Fort Lauderdale) | The county to the north, with Plantation and Fort Lauderdale: Citrix's software empire, Chewy's pet-commerce giant and Magic Leap's AR labs — South Florida's older tech base. |
| Doral | Warehouses and corporate campuses by the airport's west side — and Carnival's global headquarters. |
| Blue Lagoon | The office park beside Miami International Airport, home to Burger King's headquarters since the chain was founded in Miami. |
| Wynwood | Murals and converted warehouses where the 2021 migration set up shop — OpenStore's office, the coworking spaces and Amazon's expanding floors. |
| Downtown | Biscayne Boulevard's arena, college and towers: Miami Dade College's Wolfson campus and the arena that wore FTX's name until the exchange collapsed. |
| Brickell | 'Wall Street South': Citadel's headquarters, Kaseya's tower floors and Founders Fund's office — where hedge-fund money met the startup migration. |
| PortMiami | The world's cruise capital on Dodge Island — Royal Caribbean's headquarters overlooks its own ships. |
| Miami Beach | The convention centre where eMerge Americas and the bitcoin conferences filled the halls — Miami's stage for its own story. |
| Coral Gables | The Mediterranean-revival suburb of the University of Miami (1925) and dozens of Latin American regional headquarters. |
| Westchester & FIU | Florida International University's main campus — one of the country's largest Hispanic-serving universities and the region's engineering pipeline. |
PortMiami is the world's busiest cruise port, and Carnival and Royal Caribbean are both headquartered in Miami — global travel giants that are now among the region's largest technology buyers.
Chewy, founded in South Florida in 2011, won with customer service — handwritten notes and pet portraits — sold to PetSmart for $3.35B, and listed on the NYSE in 2019.
Startup Genome ranked Miami №22 in 2025, down from №16 in 2024; seed deals roughly halved, and the report warned the city's AI-native activity was well below where it should be. The migration brought capital — building a native bench is the next test.
Miami's bilingual talent and flight network make it the US base for many Latin American startups and investors — a niche no other US ecosystem can easily copy.
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Miami startup ecosystem — FAQ
Did the 2020–21 tech migration to Miami last?
Partly. Citadel's 2022 headquarters move, the funds that opened offices, and Kaseya's growth gave Miami a durable finance and capital base; the metro raised $2.77B in 2024. But the crypto chapter faded after FTX's collapse, some high-profile investors moved on, seed deals roughly halved, and GSER 2025 ranked Miami №22, down from №16, warning about weak AI-native activity. The migration brought money and attention; the native startup bench is still being built.
Which districts matter most for startups?
Brickell is the money district (Citadel, Kaseya, Founders Fund); Wynwood is the startup-office and coworking quarter (OpenStore, Amazon's floors); Downtown holds the arena and Miami Dade College; Miami Beach hosts eMerge and the big conferences; Coral Gables and Westchester house the universities; Doral, PortMiami and Blue Lagoon hold the cruise and food giants; Broward to the north has Citrix, Chewy and Magic Leap. The map above shows all ten zones.
What are the ecosystem's biggest failures?
FTX's collapse is the symbolic one — the exchange's name came off the downtown arena in 2023 after a $135 million, 19-year deal ended in bankruptcy. Magic Leap's fall from a reported $6.4B valuation to about $450M by mid-2020 is the region's most expensive startup lesson. MiamiCoin's slump and the post-2022 funding decline completed a hard reset after the migration's peak.
How does Miami compare with the other atlases?
It is Austin's coastal cousin: a city that grew by attracting companies and capital rather than spinning them out of a university. Against Dubai, it shares the low-tax, lifestyle and gateway pitch (to Latin America rather than the Gulf). Its strengths are finance (Brickell), Latin American connections and a bilingual workforce; its weaknesses, per Startup Genome, are seed-stage depth and AI-native company creation.
Is the map geographically accurate?
It is a schematic: district shapes and pin positions are simplified for readability, not navigation. Pins mark the district where a company was founded or keeps its headquarters, based on public company information as of October 2026; Broward County (Fort Lauderdale, Plantation) is shown as the northern block, and Citadel's and Founders Fund's pins date to their Miami moves rather than their original foundings. Companies whose exact district we could not verify (Atomic, Pipe, MoonPay, Blockchain.com's Miami office, Papa, ShipMonk, Bilt's Miami team among them) appear in the cluster files rather than on the map.
