Noble Capital Markets a 'boutique' house matching companies with investors — and their money (2025)

This year's NobleCon will take place Dec. 3-4 at FAU's campus in Boca. The headline act will be an appearance by three of the four investors featured on the ABC network's 'Shark Tank' show.

This story was updated to correct a misspelling/typo.

Long before the moniker "Wall Street South" became Palm Beach County's calling-card brand, a Boca Raton investment firm had made a name for itself in the world of high finance.

Noble Capital Markets, which was founded in the south county city in 1984, found its niche in the world of small, early development businesses with a good idea and passionate entrepreneurial leadership but with an existential need for investors and their dollars.

Four decades later, that role remains a guiding north star.

"Our mission from our founding years hasn't changed much," said Nico Pronk, Noble's president and chief executive officer. "We position ourselves as a boutique investment bank. We're not a Goldman Sachs, or UBS or Morgan Stanley."

The world of business, and the expertise required to succeed, has evolved significantly in the past 40 years, however. New industries in communications technology have surged while others, like health care, have branched out into myriad new opportunities. Even high finance has diverged with investment instruments as different as derivatives and cryptocurrencies.

Boca Raton 'boutique' investment house has eye on small cap, start-up companies

Pronk said Noble has kept pace with the changes.

Today, he said, Noble's portfolio has a concentration in health care — roughly 40% of the portfolio — in a broad roster of areas, including biotech, medical devices and health care services. A second area of specialty is media technology and telecommunications, which represent about another 30% of the firm's coverage universe, he said.

Another 10% is allocated in the field of logistics and transportation, with the balance in natural resources, mostly oil and gas, minerals and mining companies developing "rare-earth minerals" needed for the electric-vehicle revolution, he said.

And there are also forays into consumer products and services. Those include 1-800-Flowers, FAT Brands restaurants, fashion accessories company Vera Bradley, high-end designer Isaac Mizrahi, the E.W. Scripps media corporation, Eledon Pharmaceuticals and Office Depot.

Michael Kupinski, Noble's director of research, said the firm scrutinizes small- and micro-cap companies in lower and middle market tiers that need an assist.

"We are looking to help companies in need of capital to grow their business," he said. "We're in the business of helping companies amplify their stories. We do that through research."

Nonetheless, a significant share of firm's business remains assisting privately held companies to raise money to carry out business plans. And many of those are local.

"We tend to stay closer to home because these companies are less mature generally," Pronk said. "They need more hand-holding. They need more direct oversight."

An example of a local success story is 1800Petmeds.com, an online pet pharmacy.

"They literally started out of a garage in Pompano Beach," Kupinski said. "That's when we first met the management team."

Noble's team, he said, helped the company, then privately held, to raise capital in a handful of private offerings, ultimately leading their initial public offering of shares. Pet Meds at one point had $500 million in market capitalization.

Boca Raton: NobleCon conference to stage 'Shark Tank' event to promote enterprises connected with FAU

Noble also boosts interest in the companies through its trading desk and by offering research and data on them to prospective investors. It offers a host of free and accessible research and other information on an online portal called channelchek.

The URL offers a plethora of data, videos, interviews with CEOs, presentation materials from conferences, news articles, research reports and other materials for which institutional houses usually charge clients. But channelchek is available for free to "anyone who wants to use it," Kupinski said

"This is very unique on Wall Street," he said. "It's a library of product and a library of information that is second to none out there."

Emergence of 'Wall Street South' a boon to Boca Raton investment house

Just like Noble promotes its companies, the county's emergence as a financial hub has helped, too.

"It's real, not just headline," said Kupinski. "A lot of fund managers looking at our investment ideas, vis-a-vis our research, used to be located in Boston or Chicago or New York. They've made their way down here."

Now, rather than trying to convince investors to travel to South Florida to meet and review companies, Kupinski joked Noble can just invite them to a luncheon since they are already local.

"It's just a testament to how many people are actually located here," he said.

Pronk and Kupinski point out how the firm's annual investment conference, NobleCon, has benefited from the relocation of Wall Streeters here. NobleCon, held in December, matches companies in need of capital with investors looking for higher-return candidates.

Last year, more than 1,000 investors attended and 80 companies were featured in an event at Florida Atlantic University's Boca Raton campus in which the headline moment was a talk with former President George W. Bush that was moderated by Kupinski.

NobleCon 2023 also marked a full-on return from COVID as in-person financial conferences completed their comeback from the pandmeic shutdown and subsequent virtual and hybrid gatherings. Heading into the event, Pronk and Kupinski said they were concerned about competition since so many other high-level financial gatherings were also being staged.

"In 2023, more competitors went back to face-to-face, especially in the second half, and that created a little bit of conference fatigue," Pronk said. "We were a little bit concerned about that. But it turned out to be a record event for us. The investor turnout was never higher."

Relationship with FAU appealing to Noble, and investors

This year's NobleCon will take place Dec. 3-4 at FAU's Boca Raton campus. The headline act will be an appearance by three of the four investors featured on the ABC network's "Shark Tank" show.

Kevin O'Leary, Robert Herjavec and Daymond John will be pitched by three businesses either associated with the FAU Tech Runway, student entrepreneurs or university alums. Pronk said the concept is perfectly suited for an investor conference whose theme and objective is to match up early-stage enterprises with investment capital.

Pronk said having the event on a university campus and aligned with FAU's business school provided an added boost. He said it was a bit of a "leap of faith" to hold NobleCon on a university campus rather than a posh hotel conference and spa resort, but it paid off.

"In hindsight, it's the best thing we've done in a long time," Pronk said of the relationship with FAU. "We really value that. It's good to give back to the community and higher learning. This took it to the next level."

Antonio Fins is a politics and business editoratThe Palm Beach Post, part of theUSA TODAY Florida Network.You can reach him atafins@pbpost.com.Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.