UCF Incubator in Winter Springs leaving city after commission abruptly pulled funding

It’s official: The University of Central Florida’s Winter Springs business incubator is moving to Heathrow, a year after Winter Springs pulled $75,000 in funding. 

The Seminole County Commission on Tuesday approved an agreement that clears the way for the incubator to move to Seminole State College’s Heathrow campus. That location would also be co-located with the Seminole County Chamber of Commerce and Seminole County’s economic development office. 

In an interview with Oviedo Community News, Rafael Caamaño, the interim director of innovation districts and the incubator at the University of Central Florida, said being co-located with the other economic development offices creates a “synergy.”

He said it was “stressful” finding a new location, but most companies ultimately moved with them.  

“Anything that disrupts business becomes stressful to us, because it contradicts what we’re supposed to be doing for them,” Caamaño said. “So when we have a partner that decides to go a different route, you create a risk for these companies to be affected. Lucky enough, these companies were in a very strong position.”

In October of 2024, Winter Springs signed a three-year contract to give the UCF Business Incubation Program $75,000 annually. Seminole County decided in January 2025 to give the incubator an additional $795,000 spread over three years. 

But in August of 2025, the Winter Springs City Commission reneged on its annual funding commitment. 

Winter Springs Mayor Kevin McCann said the incubator leaving the city was the ultimate and predictable end result of that vote. 

“I will tell you, it’s not what partners do to each other,” McCann said. “We signed a three-year contract. You don’t break a contract, particularly with a partner as prestigious as UCF. If we had reached the end of the contract and then we decided to pull funding — no complaints.” 

McCann is running for reelection in November, but the Winter Springs mayor only votes in the case of a tie. Commissioners Victoria Bruce, Mark Caruso and Paul Diaz all voted to pull back the funding in 2025. 

Bruce, who is up for reelection in November, had no comment on the departure. Calls and text messages to Diaz were not returned before deadline. 

Caruso said he was still happy with the vote.

“I think a bunch of us thought they weren’t going to go anywhere,” Caruso said. But, he added: “The property owner pays taxes on the property anyway. It’s not a loss for the city.”

The companies that are leaving

So what happened to the companies in the Winter Springs incubator? Who is staying, and who is leaving?

The companies moving from Winter Springs to Heathrow include: TimePlast, LifeBridge Innovations, ThinkCFO, Barwick Banking Company and CareFlo.

Octanium, Altona, Keenut, and R&B Pickles Longwood (formerly Rhythm & Blues) will continue in the program but work remotely within Seminole County; it’s unclear if they will operate in Winter Springs or elsewhere in the county. 

VersioPay, Credit Repair of Florida, and Leo Innovate were already off-site incubator clients and will continue to work remotely within Seminole County. Both VersioPay and Leo Innovate have Winter Springs addresses.

According to an economic impact report from the Haas Center at the University of West Florida, shared by the UCF Incubator, from January of 2022 to December of 2023, the incubator supported 157 jobs. 

Companies in the Winter Springs incubator had $34 million in revenue, and paid employees $13.4 million — with an average wage of $85,350. That leads to a total economic impact of $69.2 million, while getting $645,838 in local funding. 

That also includes $4.8 million in taxes paid, according to the report.

The UCF Incubator was recently ranked by Time Magazine as the 17th best incubator or accelerator in the country; with only the Tampa Bay Wave accelerator being ranked higher in Florida.

“The most successful ones … are attached to a research institution because, at the end of the day, we help to commercialize technology companies, due to the technology that’s coming out of the (research) institution, and that tends to yield a lot for the community,” Caamaño said. “We’re still in a very, very competitive position, and I’m very proud of the work that we have done helping the small business community.”

Seminole County Commissioner Bob Dallari said originally the incubator was going to be located in Oviedo, but landed in Winter Springs.

“If you want to grow your economic base, the majority of the jobs in this state and country are small businesses,” Dallari said. “It’s not the incubator that makes you money. It’s the businesses that grow out of it.”

Abe Aboraya is a Report for America corps member.