1
Labor Secretary visits NEXA, lauds Hollywood company’s $100M expansion investment
Earlier this week, U.S. Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling, visited Hollywood-based NEXA and its founder and CEO, Robert Morcos. The topic of their discussions revolved around NEXA’s efforts expanding job creation in South Florida and making sure the metro area is a destination for technical talent to support South Florida’s growing tech industry.
NEXA, formerly Social Mobile, is a leader in custom wireless solutions for enterprises and IoT. NEXA creates connectivity devices for firms such as Bechtel, DoorDash, Abbott Labs, Disney, and many more.
“It’s great that companies are expanding and building, but we want to make sure that local workers are getting these opportunities so they can stay home and stay in their local community and not have to leave to get these high-tech, high-skilled jobs,” Sonderling, a Boca Raton native and Broward County public schools graduate, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
NEXA has recently made a $100 million investment to expand its local design and manufacturing at its facilities in South Florida, and has announced a collaboration with Qualcomm and a development project with the Department of Homeland Security. Sonderling said the expansion “counters a lot of narrative you hear of the doom and gloom of the tech industry.”
“When I founded NEXA in Miami in 2011, I knew South Florida had the potential to become an important center for technology and innovation. ” This week, I was proud to welcome Acting U.S. Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling to our headquarters.” Morcos shared on LinkedIn after the visit, Read more here.
2
A1R water completes SPAC combination
A1R water, an atmospheric water generation company that produces packaged mineralized drinking water from humidity in the air, announced the closing of its business combination with Inflection Point Acquisition Corp. III, a SPAC led and backed by the management team of Inflection Point Asset Management. The business combination was approved by Inflection Point Acquisition Corp. III shareholders and closed on Aug. 14. The combined company began trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the ticker symbol WATR.
The transaction provides a fully committed $96 million PIPE anchored by Inflection Point, existing A1R water investors, Southern Glazers Wine & Spirits, and several institutional investors. The capital will support the combined company’s plans to scale water production, expand retail distribution, and build atmospheric water generation into a broader commercial category.
A1R water is advancing a new model for packaged water built around atmospheric water generation that integrates water generation technology, filtration, mineralization, and plastic-free packaging at the source. A1R water has launched in South Florida and is currently available through marquee sports and hospitality partnerships, including at the Miami HEAT’s Kaseya Center and Inter Miami CF’s NU Stadium at Miami Freedom Park. Distribution across South Florida retail and on-premise accounts is underway and will continue to expand across the Southeast in the coming months.
“The air around us is an abundant but underutilized water source. By combining our technology and distribution network, A1R water is redefining how packaged drinking water is sourced to meet growing consumer demand for luxury hydration without straining traditional groundwater sources,” said A1R water CEO Peter Carr in a statement. “This listing provides the capital and visibility to scale our business and bring a truly distinctive product to consumers to capture a $12.5 billion opportunity in the air-to-water market.”
READ MORE IN REFRESH: The water aisle is about to get a breath of fresh A1R
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Last days to apply for SPARC South Florida competition
SPARC South Florida is back. It’s South Florida’s regional competition for the global Startup World Cup, where the grand prize is a cool $1 million at the world finals in San Francisco. The competition is open to South Florida founders across Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. Finalists in the local round will pitch in September. The winner of the local contest till compete in SF in October. But you can’t win if you don’t enter.
Learn more and apply by August 31 at SparcSouthFlorida.com.
4
Report breaks down how South Florida tech salaries compare
In South Florida, rent consumes 27.4% of the average tech salary, according to CBRE’s 2026 Scoring Tech Talent report. That makes it the second most-expensive US and Canadian housing market analyzed by CBRE, behind only Manhattan, where tech workers earn an average of almost $153,000 and spend 28.7% of their income on housing, the South Florida Business Journal reported.
The average technology worker salary in the Miami area was $112,962 in 2025. The average tech salary in the best-paid market, San Francisco, is $195,142 and rent cost about 19.2% of the average SF salary, the report found. South Florida residents are also more likely to devote a greater share of their income to rent than workers in competing markets like Orlando (18%) and Tampa (18.4%).
Overall, South Florida ranked No. 24 in CBRE’s tech-talent rankings, with 83,130 tech workers in 2025, accounting for 2.8% of total employment . The region’s tech workforce grew 12.4% from 2022, adding more than 9,000 people. Read more here.
5
Guident partners with state college to advance workforce development
Guident, the Boca Raton-based a leader in autonomous vehicle remote monitoring and human-in-the-loop operations, announced a strategic collaboration with Florida State College at Jacksonville to advance workforce development for the rapidly evolving autonomous transportation industry.
The partnership will support the development of an autonomous vehicle remote monitoring and control training program at FSCJ’s Downtown Campus. The program gives students, faculty, and transportation professionals practical exposure to the technologies, workflows, and operating models required for transportation systems to transition from conventionally driven vehicles to autonomous and human-supervised mobility services.
As a first major milestone, Guident has installed its GuideOn™ remote monitoring and operations technology at FSCJ, establishing the college as Guident’s sixth Remote Monitor and Control Center (RMCC) location globally and marking the sixth GuideOn vehicle integration through the addition of FSCJ’s “Olli” autonomous shuttle. The Olli autonomous shuttle will be incorporated into the training environment to provide hands on experience for students learning remote assistance, analytics, safety procedures, and operational oversight.
“The future of autonomy is not only about the vehicle. It is about the people, systems, processes, and operating environments that make autonomous services safe, reliable, and scalable. Through this collaboration, we are helping create a practical training pathway for the workforce that will support the future of transportation,” said, Guident Executive Chairman and CEO Harald said in the announcement.
READ MORE ON REFRESH: Guident says the robots are finally catching up
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Remitian partners with Thomson Reuters
Remitian, the AI-powered tax payment platform built for the accounting profession, announced a partnership with Thomson Reuters, a global content and technology company. The collaboration will integrate Remitian’s tax payment infrastructure into Thomson Reuters SafeSend giving customers in the United States a connected path from tax preparation through payment.
Tax software has long handled preparation, filing and compliance, but the final step: actually paying taxes across a patchwork of government portals, paper forms and bank workflows, has stayed manual and disconnected. Remitian automates it, giving firms and their clients one place to review what is owed, authorize payment and confirm it cleared across federal, state and local authorities. Through the integration, that capability becomes available to Thomson Reuters customers inside the tools they already use.
“Thomson Reuters helped shape modern tax and accounting technology, so a partnership of this kind validates what we set out to prove: that payment is the missing layer in the tax workflow,” said Solon Angel, co-founder and CEO of Remitian. “We built Remitian so firms can focus on their bottom line, not tax deadlines. Bringing that to Thomson Reuters customers moves automated tax payment closer to becoming the standard.”
Remitian processed more than $100 million in U.S. tax payments across more than 60 jurisdictions during the 2025 filing season, its first full season in the U.S. market
READ MORE IN REFRESH: Remitian is fixing the broken moment in tax compliance no one talks about
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Jobs, jobs, jobs
Beycome – Customer Success & MLS Operations Representative
Flex – Sr Software Engineer, Security
Hut 8 – Architectural Engineer
Hut 8 – Director of Cybersecurity
Kaseya – Financial Analyst
Lennar – Director of AI Engineering
Lennar – Sr DevOps Engineer
Ramp – Director of Customer Experience
Ramp – Sr Financial Crimes Compliance Controls Strategist
SubBase – Customer Success Director
Transak – Product Partnership Manager
Find more opportunities on Refresh Miami’s job board here.
8-PLUS
Opportunity knocks
- eMerge Americas’ SMB Growth Lab, powered by JPMorganChase + Momentum Miami, helps Miami-Dade small and medium-sized businesses embrace digital transformation and unlock sustainable growth. Last year the cohort grew from 30 to 61 SMBs, and the results followed: new customers, new revenue, and connections that are still paying off today. Apply here.
- Calling all Florida-based startups: GatorPitch Miami has always been an opportunity for University of Florida-affiliated startups to get in front of South Florida’s vibrant investor and entrepreneurial ecosystem. For this year’s event on Nov. 5, UF Innovate is opening the opportunity to pitch to Florida-affiliated companies. Find out more here and apply here by Sept. 4.
- Are you Miami curious? Maybe you’re ready for more sunshine or tired of state income taxes. Maybe you’re just looking for your next adventure. The challenge usually isn’t the city, it’s figuring out how to make the move make sense – the right role, the right company, the right connections. If you’ve been thinking about Miami, check out moveto.miami, powered by Refresh Miami. We’re here to help.
ICYMI – Catch up!
- Recent startup fundraises: For the win, Miami-based basketball startup league Unrivaled raises $100M+ Series C
- TravelX lands new backing to modernize airline revenue
- Expansion news: Global engineering firm Svitla Systems adds Miami home base
- Recent spotlights: Humanoid robots to clean your house? Faireez now offers people for housekeeping, as it collects data to train robots
- Miami’s newest real estate amenity: turning crypto into keys
- ACE Club wants to take ‘Where should we eat? off Miami’s menu
- AI-powered legaltech eBrevia’s second act takes shape in Miami
- And much more paywall-free #MiamiTech news here!
Have news to report? Email Nancy Dahlberg at nancy@refreshmiami.com and follow her on X @ndahlberg and on LinkedIn. Subscribe to Refresh Miami’s free weekly newsletter here featuring startup news, tech job opportunities and events.
- 8+ things to know in #MiamiTech: News from NEXA, A1R water, SPARC South Florida, tech salaries, Guident, Remitian, jobs opportunities & more – August 29, 2026
- For the win, Miami-based basketball startup league Unrivaled raises $100M+ Series C – August 26, 2026
- Zigazoo taps entertainment veteran as CEO to lead Gen Alpha expansion – August 19, 2026
