From South Florida Startup to National Tech Player: NEXA’s $100M Bet on American Innovation

When Acting U.S. Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling walked through NEXA’s product lab in Hollywood this week, the visit represented more than a stop at one of South Florida’s fastest-growing technology companies.

It offered a glimpse into a different chapter of the region’s technology economy, one increasingly focused not only on software, startups and capital, but also on engineering, advanced manufacturing, secure communications and the skilled workforce needed to support them.

At the center of that story is NEXA.

The City of Hollywood-based enterprise mobility company has committed to a $100 million strategic investment aimed at expanding the U.S.-based engineering, modernizing its technology portfolio, diversifying manufacturing and strengthening domestic supply chains.

For CEO and founder Robert Morcos, Sonderling’s visit also represented something of a full-circle moment. In a social media post, he shared, “When I founded NEXA in Miami in 2011, I knew South Florida had the potential to become an important center for technology and innovation,” Morcos said following the visit. “This week, I was proud to welcome Acting U.S. Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling to our headquarters.”

During his August 26 visit, Sonderling toured NEXA’s product lab and met with company leadership to discuss another critical piece of that expansion: developing the South Florida workforce needed to fill the high-tech jobs that could come with it. For a company that started in South Florida 15 years ago, the moment represents a significant evolution.

The Transition From Social Mobile to NEXA

Founded in 2011 by Morcos as Social Mobile, the company initially entered the highly competitive consumer smartphone market before making a pivotal decision to focus on enterprise technology. That shift would ultimately reshape the company.

Rather than competing for consumers, Social Mobile began developing purpose-built devices for organizations that needed technology designed around specific workflows and operating environments. Its devices have since been deployed across industries including healthcare, retail, transportation, public safety and government.

Today, the company says more than 15 million of its devices have been deployed worldwide.

Its South Florida presence has grown alongside the business. In 2024, the company opened a 20,000-square-foot design and engineering headquarters in Hollywood.

Then, in October 2025, Social Mobile became NEXA, a rebrand reflecting a company that had evolved considerably beyond its original mobile-phone roots. The growth has attracted attention.

NEXA has appeared on the Inc. 5000 four times, and this month the South Florida Business Journal ranked it No. 1 among the region’s fastest-growing companies with more than $25 million in annual revenue. But perhaps the biggest indication of where NEXA is headed came through another company's technology portfolio.

Morcos, however, points to what that growth makes possible as the more important milestone. “Being recently named South Florida’s #1 Fastest-Growing Company is a meaningful milestone, but the larger opportunity is what that growth allows us to build next,” he shared.

The Sonim Acquisition Opens a New Chapter

In January, NEXA completed its acquisition of substantially all of Sonim Technologies’ enterprise mobility assets, adding rugged smartphones, feature phones, wireless internet devices, software and other technologies to its portfolio.

The Sonim acquisition significantly expands NEXA’s reach into markets where reliable communications can be mission-critical, including public safety, government and enterprise environments. It also builds upon NEXA’s previous work in the defense sector.

In 2022, the company partnered with Qualcomm Technologies on a 5G tactical mobile device solution supporting the U.S. Air Force through a congressional Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract.

More recently, NEXA entered into a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to collaborate on secure and resilient mobile technologies for areas including cybersecurity, border security, transportation safety and emergency response.

Together, those developments position the South Florida company at the intersection of several national priorities: secure communications, domestic technology capabilities, resilient supply chains and national security.

A $100 Million Bet on What Comes Next

Earlier this year, NEXA disclosed plans for a $100 million strategic investment designed to accelerate its next stage of growth. The commitment includes expanding the U.S.-based engineering, developing and modernizing its technology portfolio, scaling operations, diversifying manufacturing and strengthening supply-chain resilience.

That context makes Sonderling’s visit particularly significant.

The question is no longer simply whether a South Florida technology company can grow. It is whether South Florida can provide the engineers, cybersecurity professionals, technicians, manufacturing specialists and other skilled workers required to support companies as they scale.

Sonderling’s visit placed NEXA directly within a broader national conversation around workforce development and the effort to strengthen American manufacturing and technology capabilities that can drive downstream job creation and economic growth. 

And NEXA wasn't his only South Florida stop.

A day earlier, Sonderling visited Miami Dade College, where he toured its Broadband Utilities Lab and observed students participating in workforce training designed to prepare them for telecommunications and infrastructure careers.

Taken together, the visits illustrate both sides of the equation: companies investing in technology and creating jobs, and educational institutions tasked with developing the people capable of filling them.

South Florida Is Building More Than Software

For much of the past several years, South Florida’s emergence as a technology hub has been measured through venture capital, startup formation and the relocation of technology and financial companies from other markets. But another layer of the ecosystem has been developing alongside it.

South Florida is home to companies working across aerospace, aviation, defense, electronics, additive manufacturing, robotics, communications and other advanced industries.

In Hollywood alone, NEXA operates alongside companies such as HEICO and Sintavia, two businesses deeply connected to aerospace and advanced manufacturing.

Across the broader region, universities and colleges including Florida Atlantic University, Florida International University, Nova Southeastern University, Miami Dade College and Broward College are increasingly aligning programs with emerging technology and workforce needs.

NEXA adds another dimension to that landscape: a technology company born in South Florida that is designing physical products here and increasingly serving customers whose communications needs extend far beyond conventional enterprise mobility.

For Morcos, keeping more of that activity in the United States, and in South Florida, is central to what comes next. “We want to keep investing in skilled talent, expanding U.S.-based engineering, R&D, and manufacturing, creating technology career opportunities in South Florida, and strengthening and securing the domestic technology ecosystem,” he shared.

That statement may ultimately be the most consequential takeaway from Sonderling’s visit.

A South Florida Company With National Ambitions

There is still an important question surrounding NEXA’s $100 million commitment: exactly how much of the investment, and how many resulting jobs, will ultimately land in South Florida. Those details will determine the full economic impact of the expansion, but Sonderling’s visit offers an indication of why the company is increasingly important to watch.

NEXA is no longer simply the South Florida startup once known as Social Mobile. Through organic growth, a major acquisition, expansion into government and defense markets and a substantial investment in its next generation of technology, the company is positioning itself within a much larger national conversation about where America’s technology is designed, how it is manufactured and who will build it.

For South Florida, that could represent something equally important. The region has spent years establishing itself as a place where technology companies can launch, relocate, raise capital and scale. NEXA represents another piece of that evolution: a homegrown company investing in engineering, research and development, physical technology and the people required to build it.

Fifteen years after Morcos bet that South Florida could become an important center for technology and innovation, the visit from the nation's top labor official suggests that bet is attracting attention well beyond the region.

And it raises a bigger question for South Florida's technology economy: Can the region become not only a place where the next generation of technology companies are built, but where the next generation of American technology is built, too?

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