TampaBay.Ventures launches with a $20M seed fund

What did I tell you! Florida tech is just heating up! A brand new venture capital firm based in Tampa Bay launched this week, the fund, TampaBay.Ventures is led by Marcus Adolfsson, Andreas Calabrese, Tom Frederick, and Wesley Barnett. To date, the Tampa Bay region has been home to a handful of world-class tech startups (e.g. Wikipedia, Tradeex, Wufoo, ConnectWise, KnowBe4), but the startup community could really use some more help.

At the moment, there is currently a lack of sufficient funding in the area to support the region’s next breakout startups – and that's exactly where TampaBay.Ventures comes in, the fund is focused on investing in 20 companies over the next five years.

I recently met TampaBay.Ventures partner, Andreas Calabrese on Clubhouse and was thrilled when he reached out to connect with me about the new venture fund. The four partners have been working on this fund since early January and they're really excited about the opportunity to continue to contribute to the ecosystem. Honestly, it's really great to see, especially since the startup community in Tampa Bay has been steadily gaining traction – there have been accelerators built in the region, such as the Tampa Bay Wave and Embarc Collective, both of which have been home to some incredible startups (e.g. Coinbase, Grifin, Synapse).

This is clearly the next logical step to driving innovation in Tampa Bay. Fund great teams and early stage companies. Get people building!

“We have been trying to solve the tech funding gap problem in Tampa Bay for years. While there are a number of promising early stage tech companies in the area, a countless number of startups with high potential have unnecessarily struggled or dissolved due to the early-stage capital problem,” said Allen Clary, co-founder of the Tampa Bay Wave and Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at USF.

I met Allen Clary on Clubhouse as well, he's doing great work in helping support the Tampa Bay/Gainesville tech scene so it's great to see him onboard with this news. Another really important person to know in the Tampa Bay startup scene is Murewa Olubela, she runs the Tampa Bay Startups Club on Clubhouse (every Thursday at 8PM ET). If you're in Tampa Bay tech, definitely give her a follow and attend her rooms!

I'm extremely excited about this new fund. It's just more proof that Florida tech is here to stay! If you're building down here, please don't hesitate to reach out and connect with me! Also be sure to check out the Product Hunt Blitz we're hosting currently. We want to hunt your product on Product Hunt for the entire community to get behind!

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