Happy Thursday! This is Mind Your Business.

First, a quick warning for anyone running a business website on WordPress: check with your web host today to make sure PHP is patched.

Amazon detected attempts to exploit two critical security flaws on October 17, four days before fixes were released. These flaws could let hackers take control of your server, and updating WordPress alone won't fix them.

Now, onto what's happening around Tampa Bay…

Getting your first customer is exciting. Getting them to come back is what builds a business.

We saw that all over Tampa Bay this week: a federal agency renewed a contract and a local AI company landed another hospital system. Meanwhile, Moffitt opened 250,000 square feet of research space, a restaurant chain disclosed a $20.6 million raise, and a sulfur shortage put nearly 200 local jobs at risk.

🔔 WHAT JUST MOVED
Recent news from the last week shaping Tampa Bay right now.

Here's what's on the board:

🧬 20 cancer labs with room for future startups.
🫀 TGH hits 1,000 liver perfusions as wait times shrink.
🍳 Why is a Tampa diner chain targeting $45M?
🤖 100+ health systems and another Clearwater AI deal.
🛡️ A cybersecurity giant reports 35%+ AI revenue growth.
🌾 A global sulfur shortage threatens 199 Polk County jobs.
🦁 A 4–3 vote advances a potential $150M zoo expansion.

Big numbers, unexpected moves and a few developments worth watching.
Scroll down for the details…

🧬LIFE SCIENCES / R&D

Moffitt Cancer Center opened its Discovery and Innovation Center on October 22 at Speros, its 775-acre life sciences campus in Pasco County. The 250,000-square-foot building brings drug discovery, chemistry, bioengineering, cancer metabolism and tumor biology teams together, with a focus on cell therapies and radiopharmaceuticals.

By the end of 2026, Moffitt expects 20 faculty labs, 12 shared research facilities and about 250 research personnel in the building.

The startup angle: third-floor space is reserved for a planned biotech incubator tied to the FORGE effort with Embarc Collective, targeted to open in early 2028.

⚡Why It Matters: Biotech companies tend to form near the labs producing the science. The question now is which startups take that space and stay in Tampa Bay.

🫀HEALTH CARE / TRANSPLANTS

Tampa General Hospital's Transplant Institute completed its 1,000th liver perfusion, the hospital announced October 20. That's 1,000 perfusions, not 1,000 transplants. The technique keeps a donated liver at near-body temperature outside the body while oxygenated blood circulates through it, letting surgeons assess organs that might otherwise go unused.

TGH first used the technique in October 2022 and has used it for every liver it has transplanted since September 2023. The hospital says the program has nearly doubled its liver transplant volume, and the median wait from listing to transplant is now under one month. TGH describes its in-house team as the world's largest center-based liver perfusion program.

⚡Why It Matters: TGH turned a difficult procedure into routine care, so more donated organs get considered and more patients get surgery sooner. That's the kind of expertise that puts Tampa on a much bigger map.

🍳RESTAURANTS / CAPITAL

Tampa-based Metro Diner Holdings filed a Form D with the SEC on October 15 showing $20.65 million sold toward a $45 million private offering from 11 investors, with the first sale dated September 30. The full $45 million has not been raised.

It's the chain's second filing this year. In April, it reported $4.5 million sold toward a $15 million target, so the new offering is three times as large. The filing doesn't name the investors or say how the money will be used.

Founded in Jacksonville in 1992, the chain now has more than 60 restaurants across 12 states, including several around Tampa Bay.

⚡Why It Matters: While plenty of restaurant operators are fighting for margins, a Tampa-headquartered chain is raising serious money. Where it goes, whether new locations or something else, is the next thing to watch.

😂MEME STREET

🤖HEALTH TECH / AI

Clearwater-based hellocare.ai announced October 21 that St. Luke's Health System in Idaho selected its platform for AI-assisted virtual care across its hospitals and inpatient facilities.

St. Luke's plans to use virtual nursing, telehealth and virtual sitting, where care teams monitor patients remotely rather than assigning someone to watch every room in person. Founder and CEO Labinot Bytyqi's company says it now supports more than 100 health systems across the U.S. Neither company disclosed the deal value, facility count or deployment timeline.

⚡Why It Matters: AI in hospitals gets interesting when it takes pressure off staff doing real work. The next proof point is how broadly St. Luke's deploys it and what changes for nurses and patients.

🛡️CYBERSECURITY / AI

Clearwater-based KnowBe4 announced October 21 that its AI-related annual recurring revenue grew more than 35% so far in 2026, driven by its AIDA AI agents, a new SAT Advanced training tier and its email and collaboration security products. Its broader security platform serves more than 70,000 organizations.

KnowBe4 built its name teaching employees to spot phishing. Now it's adding real-time coaching when risky behavior happens, simulated voice scams and tools to govern AI agents. Its Agent Risk Manager gives companies visibility into what their AI agents are doing, with support for Microsoft Copilot and, since August, Anthropic's Claude. The company did not disclose the dollar amount behind the 35% growth figure.

⚡Why It Matters: Everybody talks about hiring AI agents. Far fewer talk about who watches those agents once they're working, and KnowBe4 is betting its existing customers will pay for that.

🧠TICKLE YOUR BRAIN

Win me once and you have a sale.

Earn me and you have a business.

Contracts call me a follow-on. Subscriptions send an email about me every year.

I'm the quietest proof you did the job right.

What am I?

(Answer at the bottom. No peeking.)

🤖FEATURED EVENT / AI

AI is moving too fast for another event that spends the night explaining what it is.

On November 19, we're teaming up with Disrupt The Bay to bring together voices from Microsoft, Google, SOFWERX, RebelEdge Advisory and Byte Strategy AI to talk about the tools, workflows and real use cases worth paying attention to now.

Expect practical conversations, speed networking, food and drinks, and a room full of founders, operators, investors and technologists.

Note: Net proceeds will support pediatric cancer research through Save The Kids. You learn frontier AI from the pros and help kids at the same time. Win-Win!

📅 November 19 | 5–8 PM
📍 SOFWERX, 1925 E 2nd Ave, Tampa

→ Get your Early Bird Techapalooza ticket

🌾MANUFACTURING / SUPPLY CHAIN

Tampa-headquartered Mosaic plans to idle its South Fort Meade phosphate operation in Polk County and lay off 199 workers beginning December 8, according to a state notice reported by FOX 13 on October 16. The company expects the pause to last more than six months.

The problem is sulfur, a key ingredient in phosphate fertilizer, which global supply disruptions have made scarce and expensive. Mosaic's phosphate segment posted a $104 million operating loss in the second quarter, compared with $48 million in the first, a figure that includes a $69 million non-cash project write-off. Mosaic says it will restart when sulfur supply and market conditions allow.

⚡Why It Matters: A Tampa headquarters can't protect a plant from a supply shortage on the other side of the world. You can have customers and still get stuck when one essential input stops making financial sense.

⚡QUICK HITS

🔐 Attackers Hit Two Critical PHP Flaws Before the Patch
PHP released emergency fixes on October 21 for two critical flaws that can let attackers run their own code on a web server without logging in, and Amazon says hackers started trying them on October 17, four days before the patch. The fixed versions are 8.5.12, 8.4.27, 8.3.36 and 8.2.35, and a WordPress update won't install them, so ask your web host to confirm PHP itself is patched.

🦁 ZooTampa Gets Its $75M Yes
Hillsborough commissioners approved the funding 4-3 on October 21. The zoo must match the county's contribution, creating a potential $150 million, 15-year project.

🛰️ Trace Systems Lands a Five-Year Peace Corps Renewal
Tampa's Trace Systems won a five-year follow-on contract to provide 24/7 satellite voice and messaging across 60 overseas Peace Corps posts. The value wasn't disclosed.

🏟️ Tampa Moves Forward on Stadium Bond Validation
City Council voted 4-3 on October 15 to seek court validation of up to $80 million in bonds for public infrastructure tied to the proposed Rays ballpark. The bonds have not been issued.

🛩️ A Drone Maker Buys a Sarasota Composites Shop
Jupiter-based DarkMoth acquired Rapid Composites' assets on October 15. Its Sarasota site will make composite structures for uncrewed aircraft.

🎓 UTampa Begins Search for Its Next President
President Teresa Abi-Nader Dahlberg plans to step down after the fall semester for personal reasons.

🔨 New St. Pete Software Startup Targets Renovation Headaches
Indigo launched with tools for homeowners to track renovations and find partner contractors, using AI to help assess risk and make matches.

🎯OPERATOR’S TAKE

One thing I've learned from running a business: landing the customer is only half the job. Keeping them depends on things they never see.

A supplier. An employee. A system. Sometimes a raw material you assumed would always be there.

Trace kept a federal customer for another five years. hellocare.ai landed another major health system. TGH made a complex process routine. All of it depends on doing the work again and again.

Mosaic is the other side. Its plant can't run at a cost that makes sense, and 199 people in Polk County are facing layoffs.

Made me think about how many businesses, including my own, could handle losing one critical input tomorrow.

What's the weakest link in yours?

If you want to have conversations like that with other founders and operators, come find me at Techapalooza on November 19th.

All the best,
Jon Tavarez

WORTHY MENTIONS

Market Signals
⚖️ Fear & Greed: 20 (Extreme Fear), down from 31 at Oct 21 close | CNN Business
₿ Bitcoin: about $81.2K (Oct. 22 afternoon ET) | CoinGecko
🛢️ WTI crude: $99.46/barrel (+1.5% week over week) | CME
👷 Unemployment: Florida 4.4%, Tampa-St. Pete 4.3% (September) | WUSF

Market readings reflect October 22 snapshots, not fixed closing prices. WTI is EIA's latest available observation, dated October 20. Market figures can change before this email is sent.

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RIDDLE ANSWER

Answer: Renewal.

Simple explanation:
A renewal is a customer choosing you again after seeing the work. Trace Systems’ Peace Corps follow-on is a good example: same customer, same job, five more years.

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