Updated posts 2026
The notable Venture Capitalist and Philanthropist Robert Zangrillo raised over $200,000 this last weekend at the official closing party for Miami Tech Week which he held at his Miami residence. The tech event held on April 23rd was hosted by Dragon Global, Mr. Zangrillo’s VC firm, along with 137 Ventures and 305 Ventures. The evening brought together 1,000 of the top founders and venture capitalists from Miami, Austin, Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, and New York.
The guest list itself tells the story of what Miami Tech Week was designed to demonstrate. The city spent the pandemic years actively courting founders and investors from California and New York, with local officials making the pitch publicly and repeatedly, and a measurable number of firms and individuals made the move. Filling a room with a thousand people drawn from all five of those cities is the kind of proof point that arguments about a tech hub’s emergence tend to rest on.
The goal of the event was to demonstrate leadership in the Miami community by supporting the build of a Tech Campus at the Notre Dame d’Haiti Catholic Church in partnership with Magic City Innovation District and the starting goal of delivering more than 5,000 “Empowerment Backpacks” to teenagers in Miami. The backpacks will include tech tools and a built-in Mentorship Program for 14-18 year olds.
The $200,000 raised at the event through live bidding will fund this initiative to educate and train the next generation of technologists.
Donors included CEO of Dragon Global Bob Zangrillo, CEO of Sun Capital Partners Marc Leder, Space Entrepreneur Marc Bell, Co-Founder at Arc Institute Patrick Hsu, General Partner at Founders Fund Keith Rabois, Chairman and CEO of iHeart Media Bob Pittman, Angel Investor George Bousis, Attorney Bruce Weil, CEO of Genesis10 Harley Lippman, Co-Founder of Tune.FM Andrew Antar, Co-Founder at Scale AI Lucy Guo, and American filmmaker Michael Flanagan, amongst others.
“I believe it is critical to be an active leader in Miami and to ensure I can help mobilize the venture capital, technology, cryptocurrency, and real estate communities to give back by building a tech campus and distributing global empowerment backpacks and mentorship programs to the teenagers of Miami,” said Bob Zangrillo.
The Zangrillo Family Foundation matched Marc Leder’s $50,000 donation as the charity event ended up raising approximately $200,000 and 1 million JAMS Tokens were donated by Tune.FM.
