Florida Funders seeking investments
An investor who recently poured money into an Orlando startup is looking to do it one more time.
Marc Sokol, chairman of Florida Funders Investment Committee, will visit Catalyst Spaces downtown to meet with early-stage businesses.
The Florida Funders managing partner, who is based in the Tampa-St. Petersburg region, will host his office hours from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday at Catalyst, 1 Orange Ave., Suite 502, from 9:30 a.m.
Florida Funders recently participated in a $4 million round for Orlando startup Finexio, which has built a platform for businesses to eliminate paper checks from transactions.
The investment group joined Loeb.nyc, Zach Coelius, Mobile Financial Partners and other undisclosed investors in the round.
The meeting is part of a periodic series hosted at Catalyst, which has been operating at its location since April 2015.
“Catalyst is committed to providing the workspace, resources, and connections to enable Orlando entrepreneurs to grow and scale their businesses,” said Dennis Pape, Catalyst’s founder and managing director.
Orlando has recently seen the opening of more coworking spaces, which provide space for early stage companies to learn and grow through workshops and meetings with professionals in different industries.
Sokol is an investor in Melbourne-based Internet of Things startup Droplit, a platform that allows entrepreneurs to connect to IoTbased devices quickly.
An Orlando startup has won a award that has, in the past, been given to the brains behind the designs of the paperclip and a NASA spaceship.
Two architectural-based agencies have awarded its Good Design award, which highlights strong industrial, product and graphic design, to Serious Simulations.
According to judges, Serious’ virtual-reality headset, known as the Peripheral Vision Immersive Display product, is “breaking new ground in design and performance, and arguably provides the most realistic VR experience to date.”
The award is a joint venture between the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design and the Metropolitan Arts Press.
“Our team is very excited about this award,” CEO Christopher Chambers said. “Recognition helps further showcase the infinite possibilities associated with our technological advancements in virtual reality.”
The company’s PVID Pro, built out of the company’s office in the Central Florida Research Park near UCF’s campus, was selected in the electronics category.
In the award announcement, the wireless PVID Pro was said to be a “very realistic experience,” owed to Serious Simulations’ proprietary tech that reduces the lag time between a head movement and a display movement.
Serious Simulations’ product has in the past been integrated with militarytraining modules, skills training for athletes and workers, and entertainment simulators.
The electronics category of the Good Design awards also included products by Google, Hewlett-Packard and Logitech.