Miami metro pulled in $546M in VC in Q2, Pitchbook reports. What were the top deals?

by Nancy Dahlberg

Venture capital activity slowed down in Q2 in the Miami metro area and across the state, following the national trend, according to a new report out this morning. But even so, it is likely not enough to upend the potential of a stronger year for the Sunshine State and South Florida.

Startups in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale metro area were already on track to exceed last year’s funding total, thanks to a super strong Q1, and Q1 showed enough activity to keep the region on track for improved annual results,  according to the Q2 Pitchbook-NVCA Venture Monitor report. 

Nationally, the Miami-Fort Lauderdale metro retained its position as a top 10 US VC hub, according to Pitchbook’s data. Let’s take a deeper look at local, state, and national trends.

The South Florida picture

For Q2 2025, Pitchbook reported that the Miami-Fort Lauderdale metro area pulled in $546 million across 68 deals. That fell back from the revised $910.3 million raised in Q1 across 82 deals in Q1. The average deal size in Q2 was $8 million.

The region remains on pace to best last year’s total venture capital intake. The total reported by Pitchbook for the first half, $1.46 billion across 150 deals,  represents more than half of the deal value counted for all of 2024 – $2.77 billion across 358 deals – in the recent eMerge Insights report. 

Q2 top deals: According to Pitchbook’s data, here were the top 10 rounds by companies headquartered in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale metro area in Q2:

• CAST AI: The later-stage cloud performance automation startup raised $108 million Series C.

• Flow Life: The early-stage real estate startup raised $100 million Series B.

• Exowatt: the early-stage energy startup raised $70 million Series A.

• Payabli: The later-stage fintech raised $28 million Series B

• Dazos: The early-stage medtech startup raised $25 million Series A.

• Gorgie: the early-stage energy drink startup raised $24.5 million Series A.

• Bliss: the early-stage healthtech startup raised a $17 million seed round.

• Pallo: The later-stage cross-border fintech raised a $14.5 million series A.

• Isima: The early-stage Shakira-backed beauty startup raised a $12 million Series A.

• Impart Security: The early-stage API security platform raised a $12 million Series A.

The Q2 and first half totals for South Florida will likely go higher. First of all, venture capital data lags: Pitchbook and other sources revise their data constantly because new reporting comes in, rounds get reopened, startups relocate, etc. And not included by Pitchbook among top deals were fintech Felix Pago’s raise of $75 million and cybersecurity startup Guardz’s $56 million round, among others, according to Refresh Miami’s reporting. In Q1’s Pitchbook data, Rocket Youth’s $100 million raise wasn’t there, among others. Stay tuned for my midyear analysis for eMerge Insights for a deeper look at the venture activity and sector strength, both in South Florida and across the state.

In Q2 2025, the Miami-Fort Lauderdale metro area ranked 10th nationally for both amount of funding and number of deals, according to Pitchbook. For the half, that could go higher – stay tuned for that too.

There were 4 exits for South Florida companies in Q2, but only one with exit value disclosed. That would be Touchland, a Miami-based personal care brand, representing $920 million in value, according to Pitchbook.

The Florida picture

Statewide, according to data underlying Pitchbook’s new report, Florida companies drew $915 million across 124 deals in Q2 2025. By dollar value, that was down from a revised $1.24 billion across 137 deals in Q1 2025. South Florida continues to drive in most of the venture activity, representing 67% of deal value and 61% of the deals.

Still, just like for the Miami metro, the state is on track to have a higher year in 2025. In 2024, startups statewide attracted $4.13 billion, according to the eMerge Insights report.  

Top deals around the state outside South Florida in Q2 were led by ThreatLocker. The Orlando-based cybersecurity company secured a $60 million Series E round. That was followed by Orlando’s autonomous mobility company Beep, which raised a $52.7 million Series A2; TSOLife of Tampa, a senior living operations platform, that raised a $43 million Series B; and Reco, a SaaS security startup based in Orlando, which raised $25 million.

As for other Florida metro areas in Q2, Orlando attracted $184.16 million across 15 deals ($379.46 million across 32 deals for the half) and the Tampa Bay area attracted $119.26 million across 19 deals ($180.76 million across 33 deals for the half), according to Pitchbook’s data.

In Q2 across the state, there were 12 exits representing $5.41 billion in value. The largest exit was Florida Cancer Specialists & Research Institute, at $2.49 billion.

The national picture

Now let’s take a broader look. In Q2 2025, VC firms deployed $69.9 billion across an estimated 4,000 deals, representing a 24.8% decline over Q1, according to the Venture Monitor. But this drop was primarily due to the lack of a $40 billion deal in Q2, and that would be OpenAI’s $40 billion Q1 deal. Still, in Q2, the largest transaction was Scale AI’s $14.3 billion venture growth round, the second largest VC deal ever. Overall, Q2 deal count nationally remained roughly the same as in Q1.

The Scale AI deal also represented AI’s continued domination. It was one of Q2’s five AI deals topping $1 billion; the others were Safe Superintelligences, Thinking Machine Labs, Anduril and Grammarly. More broadly, AI has represented 35.6% of deal count, as well as nearly two-thirds of total US VC deal value in 2025, according to Pitchbook’s reporting.

The $67.7 billion in exit value generated in Q2 was the largest quarterly figure since the slowdown began. Exit counts were the second-highest quarterly figure since 2021, although public listings remain on track for the fewest completed in any year over the past decade, said Kyle Stanford, Pitchbook’s Director of US Venture Research.

“Companies are staying private longer as the VC landscape continues to navigate a fragile recovery. While a handful of notable exits in Q2 offered a glimpse of momentum, the broader market remains constrained by economic uncertainty,” said Niza Tarhuni, Executive VP of Research & Market Intelligence at Pitchbook.

In addition, LPs continue to remain cautious of committing to new funds as liquidity has remained poor, Stanford said. Just $26.6 billion has been raised by new US VC funds during the first half of the year, on pace to be the lowest annual figure in a decade. Twelve funds have closed on $500 million or more, collectively accounting for 46.6% of the total commitments raised.

Download the Q2 report here.