SPOTLIGHT
Dania Beach-based IntelePeer landed $140 million in investment and debt financing to “reinvent” the call center with its customer self-service artificial intelligence automation that enables customers to handle a large percentage of their needs themselves. The company employs 50 in South Florida and approximately 100 in Denver. The investment came from Savant Growth and VantagePoint Capital Partners with help from Savant limited partners while Vector Capital led the debt financing. “Our unique sales process harnesses GenAI to extract why consumers contact a business,” says IntelePeer CEO Frank Fawzi. IntelePeer says it’s automated more than 600 million customer interactions across voice, messaging and digital channels while lowering costs.
TRANSPORTATION
- Dania Beach-based Spirit Airlines was studying bankruptcy court protection or another financial restructuring after the Biden-Harris administration scuttled the airline’s rescue plan of merging with Jet- Blue. Spirt announced a new, tiered ticket-price system that bundles services such as snacks and a blocked middle seat.
RETAIL
- Fort Lauderdale-based BurgerFi International hired veteran executive Jeremy Rosenthal as chief restructuring officer and filed for Chapter 11 protection. Along with its BurgerFi brand, it owns the Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza brand.
TECHNOLOGY
- Japanese-founded gaming services company PTW acquired Fort Lauderdale-based game studio Ghostpunch Games for $13 million. Ghostpunch, founded in 2015, has worked for top-tier developers including EA, Gearbox Software, Bethesda Game Studios and others and employs 60 at what will be known as PTW Ft. Lauderdale. PTW provides services to developers and studios.
EDUCATION
- Palm Beach Atlantic University wants to add a 25-story dormitory to its West Palm Beach campus.
- Trenton, N.J.- based pilot training company Infinity Flight Group in January will open an American Airlines Cadet Academy at Treasure Coast Airport in Fort Pierce. Graduates are guaranteed placement with a regional carrier leading to an American Airlines career, the company says.
REAL ESTATE
- Boca Raton investment firm IP Capital Partners raised $95.4 million with its fifth closed-end fund and plans to acquire industrial, office and medical office properties in the southeastern U.S. with a focus on Florida. IP Capital projects that with debt financing and joint ventures, it will be able to acquire at least $937 million in assets. The firm says it owns and manages more than 11 million square feet of industrial and office space in Florida, the Carolinas, Tennessee and Georgia.Riviera Beach’s community redevelopment agency approved Boca Raton-based Forest Development’s plans for Oculina, a twin-tower, 25-story, 399-unit condo project on Broadway near the Intracoastal.
ENERGY
- Goldman Sachs Alternatives invested $440 million in West Palm Beach energy startup BrightNight, which says the money will fund its five-year business plan and advance it toward its goal of building a 31-gigawatt renewable power portfolio including solar, wind and battery.
HEALTH CARE
- Publicly held, Sunrise-based Pediatrix Medical Group sold its primary- and urgent-care practices as it sheds all its less-profitable office-based practices other than maternal fetal medicine by the end of the year. The practices numbered 700 doctors. The company’s hospital-based physicians — hospital services will be the bulk of the company business going forward — number 1,900. Pediatrix also named senior vice president Kasandra Rossi CFO as of Oct. 1, succeeding Marc Richards, its CFO since 2020.
DISTRIBUTION
- SL Industrial Partners signed Atlanta-based BroadRange Logistics to a lease for 1 million square feet at its new Fort Pierce warehouse, reports CBRE, the landlord representative. CBRE said that as of May, the deal was the largest industrial lease signing this year in Florida. BroadRange is a third-party logistics company. The company also has warehouses in Orlando and Ocala.