MIAMI—Dec. 1, 2015— Connecting with Miami’s fast-growing startup scene just got easier with the launch today of startup.miami, a new online guide that highlights the people, places and big ideas making Miami a rising hub for entrepreneurship and tech innovation.

The guide is designed to help entrepreneurs, investors, job seekers and others interested in the city’s startup growth to navigate Miami’s tech scene and connect to build successful businesses. The guide is published by The New Tropic with support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. It is available online at startup.miami.

The guide provides insights on:

· Community: Connecting entrepreneurs to mentors, investors and each other through events, as well as opportunities to collaborate and learn.

· Funding: Offering information on investor networks, accelerators, startup competitions and more.

· Talent: Helping growing teams find new talent and supporting job seekers who want to enter the Miami startup scene.

· Training: Providing tips on learning opportunities for people interested in working in tech and people at all levels interested in skill-building.

· Spaces: Offering insights on where to set up shop and find a workspace.

· People: Highlighting the leaders behind the growth of Miami’s innovation ecosystem.

“With the startup community growing so quickly in Miami, we heard a lot of questions about how to plug in and connect with all the new energy, projects and people,” said Chris Sopher, CEO of The New Tropic. “This guide is our contribution to that need. It’s a starting place for Miamians to know what’s happening and who’s doing it, and we’re looking forward to growing and evolving it in the coming months with the help of the community.”

“Miami’s rising entrepreneurs are an essential part of the growth and success of our city—creating economic value and collaborations that make our community stronger,” said Matt Haggman, Knight Foundation program director for Miami. “To create impact they need easy access to the support services and information that are essential to starting, maintaining and scaling their businesses. Startup.miami helps fill this gap, providing a one-stop-resource for entrepreneurs looking to contribute to our expanding innovation ecosystem.”

Capitalizing on the key drivers of healthy innovation ecosystems, the guide answers a call for a collection of resources to support the growth of the Miami innovation ecosystem over the last three years. It includes insights and video interviews with leaders in the startup scene, including Shaun Abrahamson, CEO and co-founder of Urban.Us, a fund that invests in startups that make cities better; Nico Berardi, managing director of Accelerated Growth Partners, an angel investor network; Felicia Hatcher, founder of Code Fever, an organization that provides tech entrepreneurship training to underserved youth; and Laura Maydon, CEO and managing director of Endeavor Miami, which mentors and accelerates high-impact entrepreneurs. New profiles will be added regularly. Startup.miami also includes a list of events from around the innovation scene and invites people—entrepreneurs, investors, everyone—to share their own stories of working in Miami’s startup community.

Miami has ranked in the top five U.S. metropolitan areas in entrepreneurial activity per capita in each of the last five years; this year it ranked No. 2 in the Kauffman Foundation’s index for startup activity. Total tech employment in Miami grew by 8.7 percent from 2008 to 2013, more than double the growth for the same period in the U.S. as a whole. However, there are still gaps in training opportunities, availability of talent and access to capital, which limits overall startup growth. Startup.miami helps tackle some of these challenges by making information and resources easier to find.

The guide, startup.miami, is part of Knight Foundation’s efforts to invest in the city’s emerging innovators and entrepreneurs as a tool to build community, while fostering talent and expanding economic opportunity. Over the past three years, Knight has made more than 100 investments in entrepreneurship in South Florida.

About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

Knight Foundation supports transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts. The foundation believes that democracy thrives when people and communities are informed and engaged. For more, visit knightfoundation.org.

Contacts:

Anusha Alikhan, Director of Communications, Knight Foundation, 305-908-2646, [email protected]