The Space Coast Advantage
“One of the unique things about our Florida operations is that we aren’t just launching here, we’re building here. We’ll have a 21st-century production facility where we’ll focus on manufacturing our reusable fleet of orbital launchers and readying them for flight again and again.“
Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon and CEO of Blue Origin
Ongoing Economic Growth
For the past few decades, Florida has experienced amazing economic growth. Florida is now the 16th largest economy in the world and may pass Mexico shortly to become the 15th largest economy in the world. Florida’s diverse economy includes leadership in Agriculture, Tourism, Aerospace, Health Care, Defense and Advanced Manufacturing.
Florida’s economic boom has been powered by a large, diverse and growing population. It is now the 3rd largest state in the country by population and is seeing consistent net in-migration from high-tax states, as well as from Latin America, European and Carribean nations. Over 1,000 people move to Florida each day!
Florida boasts an attractive tax and regulatory environment and lowering operating costs, which attracts Fortune 500 companies as well as entrepreneurs from across the county.
Leading Technology & Innovation Hubs
Since the 1950’s, Central Florida has been one of the world’s leading Space hubs, anchored by NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Prestigious aerospace companies like Boeing, Lockheed, Harris Corp and Raytheon have large presences, while the hottest new entrants like Blue Origin, SpaceX and Virgin Galatic have homes in Central Florida.
The demand for engineering talent has catalyzed the local University system. For the last three years, US News and World Report has ranked Florida the #1 state for Higher Education. Florida is home to FOUR of the Top 50 Universities in the World for producing patents (UF, FSU, UCF USF) and the Central Florida corridor produces more patents per year than the Research Triangle Park area of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill.
Central Florida is the country’s leading region for Modeling, Simulation, Training, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and e-Sports, driven by the convergence of academic talent, research demand from NASA & the DoD, and business ventures from leading entertainment organizations like Disney, Universal, EA Sports & Golf Channel.
Central Florida High Tech Corridor
Untapped Investment Environment
Despite a large and growing population, a favorable regulatory environment and leading technology hubs, Florida ranks an embarrassingly low 17th largest state in terms of venture funding. In Florida, only $285k in venture funding is available for each start-up, while California has nearly 20x more capital for each start-up, leading to inflated Silicon Valley valuations. Quite frankly, we believe investors are much more likely to realize superior returns when investing at lower entry valuations.
This fertile eco-system is wide-open for Kirenaga to invest in its most promising companies.