A startup got $5 million from Florida taxpayers and gave $500,000 to Florida politicians

An example of how private companies pull public subsidies out of Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Legislature while the politicians profit, too.

Photo credit: DXR

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Though it is not yet two years old, a politically plugged-in startup company promising to turn landfill garbage into industrial gas has already landed at least $5 million from Florida taxpayers — while handing out more than $500,000 to Florida politicians.

The company — Miami-based ReaSYN Technologies Inc. — is now lobbying for another $4 million in assistance, which Florida lawmakers appear likely to approve whenever they reconvene this spring for a special session on the state budget. Records show the company plans to pursue an additional $20 million or more in future public funding, too.

It’s a vivid example of how private companies with connections in Tallahassee pull lucrative public subsidies out of Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature — and how the politicians often profit off the arrangement.

A Seeking Rents review of campaign-finance records show that DeSantis, Senate President Ben Albritton (R-Wauchula), and House Speaker Danny Perez (R-Miami) have each raised $100,000 or more from ReaSYN Technologies since the company began lobbying for financial support from the state. The rank-and-file legislators who have personally sponsored ReaSYN’s budget requests have also received at least $10,000 apiece from the company.

ReaSYN Technologies has given more than $500,000 to Florida politicians since August 2024. (Note: Graphic does not show contributions made so far in 2026.)

To be clear, ReaSYN Technologies is not entirely unique.

For example, Seeking Rents reported earlier this year that a for-profit education company connected to Mike Huckabee — the former Arkansas governor and current U.S. ambassador to Israel — is lobbying the Florida Legislature for nearly $1.5 million to develop instructional materials that could be used in state public schools.

At the same time, a related Huckabee company has been showering tens of thousands of dollars on strategically important legislators — including the budget project sponsors, the lawmakers who chair the K-12 education budget committees, and legislative leadership.

But ReaSYN Technologies stands out — both for the amount of money it has received from Florida leaders and the amount of money it has given to them.

Representatives for ReaSYN did not respond to multiple emails seeking comment.

Incorporated in June 2024, ReaSYN Technologies bills itself as an innovative green-energy company with visions of “detoxifying the planet.” The company says it has developed gasification technology in which plasma torches burn municipal garbage at super-hot temperatures and convert it into clean synthesis gas, or “syngas,” that can then be used in the production of fuels, plastics and industrial chemicals.

Source: An illustration and graphic of a ReaSYN Technologies plasma torch originally published in a November 2025 article in Recycling an academic journal.

The company was founded, corporate records show, by executives from another firm with a knack for scoring subsidies from Florida: Insightec, a medical-tech company launched in Israel and now run out of Miami. Insightec and its executives have become close with Ron DeSantis in recent years; budget records show the governor and lawmakers have allocated around $30 million to the company over the past five years, primarily as part of funding for Alzheimer’s disease research.

ReaSYN’s president, Jonathan Weiss, is a senior executive at Insightec who has lobbied for the company in Tallahassee. Meanwhile, Insightec Chairman and CEO Maurice Ferre is a director at ReaSYN.

It’s not clear who ultimately owns ReaSYN. But Insightec has some prominent backers — namely, Koch Industries, the conglomerate led by conservative billionaire megadonor Charles Koch, which has invested at least $200 million in Insightec through a corporate subsidiary.

Regardless of the exact owners, ReaSYN quickly set about making sure that people across Florida politics knew about the new venture.

Just two months after the company was incorporated, it struck a deal to sell nearly $900,000 worth of equipment to the to the University of Florida for researchers to test. A month later, it hired a lobbying firm in Tallahassee run by a longtime Republican Party fundraiser. And a month after that, it made a $100,000 donation to the state GOP.

That was just the beginning of the campaign contributions. Shortly before Florida lawmakers opened last year’s legislative session, records show ReaSYN distributed $170,000 to key figures in the Florida Legislature.

The donations include $100,000 to Ben Albritton, the president of the Senate; $25,000 to Rep. Lawrence McClure (R-Dover), the chair of the House Budget Committee; and $10,000 each to Rep. Meg Weinberger (R-Palm Beach Gardens) and Sen. Keith Truenow (R-Eustis) — both of whom agreed to sponsor $2 million budget requests on the company’s behalf.

The company then gave $100,000 to Ron DeSantis — who, as governor, has the power to strike individual line items from the state budget.

Lawmakers ultimately agreed to fund the request. And while the governor vetoed hundreds of earmarks from the new spending plan, he didn’t touch the $2 million for ReaSYN Technologies.

The Florida Legislature earmarked $2 million for ReaSYN Technologies in the 2025-26 state budget.

Those funds are now helping to finance a pilot project in Putnam County, a rural community about 100 miles north of Orlando, where ReaSYN is installing a gasification system at a county-owned landfill. Testing is expected to begin this year.

While the project will begin by burning around five tons of trash per day, both sides hope to grow it into a commercial-scale operation capable of processing 2,100 tons per day. Putnam County, which envisions eventually importing garbage from other regions, would retain all tipping fees; ReaSYN would get to sell the resulting syngas to industrial companies and other customers.

An excerpt from a September 2025 memorandum of understanding between Putnam County and ReaSYN Technologies.

“This right here, when we make it work, we will change the solid waste industry,” Jay Tilton, Punam County’s sanitation services director, told Putnam County commissioners during a September meeting to approve the deal.

The $2 million earmark from the Legislature isn’t the only public money being invested in the project.

In December, DeSantis awarded another $3 million to ReaSYN, via a grant fund meant to finance public infrastructure in rural communities.

The Governor’s Office never mentioned the company in the announcement, saying only that the grant was “to construct and commission critical public infrastructure at the Central Landfill in Putnam County.” But county records show that Putnam Commissioners are passing the proceeds on to ReaSYN as reimbursement for site prep and other development costs.

An invoice submitted by ReaSYN Technologies to Polk County earlier this year.

And Florida leaders are now poised to put even more money into the project, as ReaSYN is lobbying the Legislature to put another $4 million into the state’s 2026-27 budget.

Lawmakers seem likely to sign off once again: Placeholder amounts have been included in both of the draft spending plans in the state House and Senate, although the final total won’t be known until lawmakers return to Tallahassee for a special session to finalize the budget.

The budget request documents note that the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences has “completed a favorable study” of ReaSYN’s technology. The lead researcher has since become a paid consultant for the company.

The documents also show that ReaSYN intends to continue seeking $4 million a year in public funds for at least the next five years — meaning the company could be looking at $20 million or more in future state funding.

The latest lobbying blitz has been accompanied by even more campaign cash: In the run up to the start of the 2026 legislative session, records show that ReaSYN made another $170,000 in contributions to important legislators.

The new gifts included $100,000 for Danny Perez, the House speaker; another $50,000 for Albritton, the Senate president; and $10,000 each for Weinberger and Sen. Jason Brodeur (R-Sanford) — the two lawmakers sponsoring the company’s earmark this time around.