Juxtapose, RSE Ventures, and Related Ross are betting that South Florida’s next tech chapter will be built company by company
For years, South Florida’s tech story has been told through migration. As wealth flowed south, Miami became a shorthand for a post-pandemic shift in where ambitious people wanted to live and work.
But investors Patrick Chun and Matt Higgins are making a different bet: that the next phase of South Florida tech will be less about who moves here, and more about what gets built here.
Chun, co-founder and managing partner of Juxtapose, and Higgins, co-founder and CEO of RSE Ventures, assert that the next great American tech hub may not be a single city, but a corridor between New York and South Florida. Now, through Juxtapose Latitudes, a new initiative created by Juxtapose, RSE Ventures, and Related Ross, they want to put that idea into practice.
The plan is to build new technology companies from the ground up in West Palm Beach and across the broader South Florida region, with a focus on industries where Florida already has a strong base: defense, aerospace, advanced manufacturing, financial services, healthcare, maritime, and industrial software.
Higgins said the timing feels different from earlier attempts to turn Florida into a startup hub.
“Florida has always been understood as a great place to have a business,” Higgins told Refresh Miami, pointing to the tax climate, weather, and quality of life. “But not maybe necessarily known as a place to build a business, especially if you are a tech founder.”
That, he argued, has changed.
From exit destination to startup base
For years, Higgins said, founders often came to Florida after building elsewhere. They exited their companies, moved, and enjoyed the benefits of the state’s business climate. But more recently, he has seen what he called a “nascent founder ecosystem” begin to form among entrepreneurs who have already built and sold companies, and who are now looking to build again.
“There’s this receptivity to building again,” Higgins said. “This is a great place to actually build.”
That observation is central to Latitudes. Rather than waiting for startups to relocate to Palm Beach County, the initiative aims to create companies locally from day one.
Higgins described himself as “a builder at heart.” Through RSE Ventures, the holding company he co-founded with Stephen Ross, he has helped build businesses across sports, media, hospitality, cybersecurity, and consumer technology. He was involved with the Miami Dolphins as vice chairman and interim CEO, helped build the broader sports and entertainment ecosystem around the franchise, and was an early backer of Resy. You also may have seen him as a judge on Shark Tank.
That background, he said, shaped how he sees West Palm Beach today.
“I’ve watched what’s been transpiring at West Palm over the last several years and see it achieving escape velocity,” Higgins said.
Stephen Ross, the billionaire developer behind Related Ross, has been investing heavily in West Palm Beach, with a focus on offices, housing, schools, healthcare, and civic infrastructure. Ross has also dipped his toes into the startup scene, helping to launch the Gold Coast Tech Accelerator. Higgins said that matters because building a startup ecosystem requires more than capital.
“We need more schools to attract the talent. We need more elite college institutions. We need elite healthcare,” Higgins said. “There’s no problem too complex for him to take custody over.”
Why Juxtapose fits the moment
For Chun, the connection to South Florida came through a different lens. Juxtapose is a New York-based creation-oriented investment firm that builds companies around large market opportunities, often where technology meets major legacy industries. Chun said the firm’s method is to find spaces where technology can create “asymmetric advantages” in industries ready for change.
South Florida, he said, has more of those industries than many people outside the region realize.
“The number of industries that exist down there really fit the mandate for what Juxtapose does and how we build,” Chun said.
He noted that Juxtapose has identified 15 critical industries where it sees major opportunities over the next decade. In 13 of them, he said, Florida ranks as a top-five state. That includes defense, advanced manufacturing, aerospace, maritime, financial services, and healthcare. Some of those industries have long been part of Florida’s economy. The opportunity now, Chun argued, is to build technology companies directly around those strengths.
“For us, we want to headquarter the business into the industries,” Chun said. “We want to be at a place where talent wants to come.”
He also said the rise of distributed work has changed what a regional startup ecosystem can look like. A decade ago, a company often had to hire almost everyone in one market. Now, a company can have a strong headquarters in Florida while also hiring specialized talent elsewhere.
That shift, Chun said, is a major advantage for West Palm Beach and South Florida. “You could build a locus of talent somewhere and still headquarter that business, but you can now access talent all over the world, all over the country,” Chun said.
A corridor, not a rivalry
The Latitudes thesis is built around the idea that New York and South Florida are complementary.
New York brings capital, enterprise customers, financial services, media, and deep professional networks. South Florida brings speed, business-friendly conditions, quality of life, and proximity to industries that are becoming more important in the next wave of technology.
Chun said he does not see Florida’s rise as a zero-sum story. “There is so much complementarity here,” he said. “There’s so much you can do here that could be built here, but also could leverage what exists in other ecosystems.”
The same logic applies within Florida. Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Tampa, and other hubs may each play different roles. Higgins said he does not view those efforts as competitive, but rather compounding.
He pointed to eMerge Americas in Miami, defense and military activity in Tampa, and the growing business base in Palm Beach County as different parts of the same broader movement. “A lot of folks are taking custody of one aspect of what is overall a giant movement,” Higgins said.
For Latitudes, West Palm Beach will be the core hub. But Chun said that does not mean every company will look the same. Some may be based in West Palm Beach. Others may have offices elsewhere in Palm Beach County, Miami, or Tampa, depending on the industry and customer base.
“There’s not going to be a one size fits all,” Chun said. “Every company will be different. Every industry is different.”
The awareness gap
Both Chun and Higgins said one of South Florida’s biggest issues is a lack of awareness.
Higgins said national media has spent plenty of time covering the migration of wealthy individuals to Florida. But that coverage often misses how many of those people became wealthy in the first place.
“They largely became a billionaire because they were doing something tremendously creative to an industry,” Higgins said. “A zebra can’t change its stripes.”
His point: many of the founders, operators, and investors moving to South Florida are unlikely to simply stop building.
Chun said the same awareness gap applies to Florida’s talent and industry base. The state has deep ties to aerospace, defense, customer contact centers, healthcare, and financial services. But outside Florida, those links are often overlooked.
“Once you think about it, it’s very clear,” Chun said. “Sometimes, the awareness isn’t there.”
That is part of what Latitudes hopes to change.
Defense tech as an early focus
One area Higgins is especially focused on is defense technology.
He said South Florida already has a significant defense base, including major military commands and a growing need for startups working on autonomy, counter-drone systems, and related technologies.
“There’s a lot of desire to ensure that South Florida and Palm Beach County can become a defense ecosystem,” Higgins said.
Higgins is also co-founder of Performance Drone Works and is involved with Ondas Holdings, a publicly traded company operating in the drone and counter-drone space that moved its HQ to West Palm Beach earlier this year.
For Higgins, the goal is not only to help build new defense and industrial technology companies through Latitudes, but also to make sure the local ecosystem can support them.
The next test for South Florida tech
South Florida has had no shortage of startup headlines over the last five years. But the next test may be harder: building companies with local roots, strong talent bases, and long-term staying power.
Chun said large incumbent companies in Florida also have a role to play. Many of them operate in industries that are ready for major technological change, and Latitudes wants to work with them to create new companies, joint ventures, and technology-led offshoots.
“There is an opportunity for the large incumbent players in Florida to think about how they really transform their businesses using technology,” Chun said.
Higgins believes Latitudes can speed up the region’s development by creating companies directly in the market rather than waiting for the ecosystem to mature on its own.
“If you could create an engine of business building in West Palm and Palm Beach, in particular,” Higgins said, “you’re going to end up accelerating and pulling forward what is currently a more nascent tech ecosystem by a decade.”
Pictured at the top of the post: Matt Higgins, co-founder and CEO of RSE Ventures, and Patrick Chun, co-founder and managing partner of Juxtapose, with Daniel Reji from RSE Ventures as moderator at the Juxtapose Annual Meeting in April 2026.
READ MORE IN REFRESH MIAMI:
- In West Palm, Related Ross sees a city of capital, talent … and tech
- Stephen Ross, eMerge Americas and Florida Council of 100 announce Gold Coast Tech Accelerator
- Florida Council of 100 and partners launch statewide tech expansion to reshape Florida’s economy
- South Florida is becoming a mission-critical hub for defense innovation
- Palm Beach County is turning inbound talent, AI trust, and institutional growth into a serious innovation ecosystem
- National Security Demo Day a salute to the power of tech and innovation
