Information abounds. Static billboards and signs have been transformed into vibrant video screens large enough to fill a wall that propel any number of images and sound.
Companies, government and educational institutions employ the latest audiovisual technologies to teach and inform.
AnuVision Technologies Inc. is an emerging audiovisual company that opened in Jacksonville in the spring of 2020, just before the coronavirus pandemic shutdown.
CEO Summer Vyne founded the company with partners Sara Wootson, vice president of sales, and Tom Polk, vice president of integration.
Born in Amarillo, Texas, Vyne spent much of her early career in Arizona. After a divorce, she wanted new surroundings and new start.
She had been working at CCS Presentation Systems since 2000. When offered a chance to relocate, she opted to move to Jacksonville in 2009.
“Now that I have moved to Jacksonville, I can’t believe I stayed in Arizona so long. I still have the warmth here but not the ovenlike heat,” she said.
Vyne, 50, describes AnuVision Technologies as a boutique AV integrator that can provide audiovisual services for classrooms, boardrooms and larger projects like high school scoreboards.
“We’re all in it from designing it to implementing it to training on it and maintaining it and refreshing it years later,” she said.
Her client list includes The University of Tampa, the city of Jacksonville, Haskell and Charter Schools USA, among others.
Last year the company revenue reached $3 million after less than $700,000 the year before, which was its first full year in business.
This year Vyne said she is setting a conservative goal of $6 million.
The company has 10 employees working in Jacksonville, Orlando and Tampa.
“We get a lot of opportunities and now we are not taking all of them because we have just realized we can’t do that and grow and financially be stable doing that. We’re being a little more selective than I think we were in the beginning,” she said.
Because of the pandemic, the trio took a year to develop strategies and marketing before contacting a single potential customer. While eager to start the company, they considered the time as a chance to prepare the business for any contingency.
“We started working in April 2020 but didn’t take our first customers until 2021. We wanted to create our back end and create our marketing. We wanted to create all of those things that sometimes take away from running your business,” she said.
“It was almost scary at first but it was the best thing that could have happened because it slowed us down and allowed us to develop how the company was going to run.”
AnuVision Technologies is a certified American Indian, woman-owned small business. It has more than a dozen certifications from local, state and federal agencies as a minority-owned business.
Vyne is a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. It is the federally recognized government of the Potawatomi people and represents more than 38,000 tribal members. She has made sure the company is positioned to use that to its advantage, she said.
“I’ve been lucky to have been with a national AV integrator for the last 20 years. I know my business very well. But these programs drive types of people we want to do business with. Sometimes we get calls because we have those certifications so they can be very beneficial,” she said.
She personally would have no problem doing business with a school like Florida State University, which uses the Seminole Indian as its mascot.
“I don’t get caught up in a lot of that. I don’t think the intentions of the FSU Seminoles is to be negative on the Indian community. If anything, I think it promotes it,” she said.
“I look at it differently because I am female in a very male-driven industry. You learn to have a very thick skin and not let things bother you so much.”
AnuVistion Technologies is at 3738 Southside Blvd., south of Beach Boulevard.
Over the next five years, Vyne would like to expand into new offices to be able to bring the team into one space from time to time. She also wants to become a prominent player in Jacksonville’s technology community.
“I want to grow more partnerships within the city and innovate North Florida more. I think there are a lot of projects that we do down south and even centrally in Florida that we wouldn’t even think about doing here. I feel we are kind of looked at as a sleepy small town,” she said.
“I think that is changing. I would love to see us be a big technology leader in the state around innovation. I’d like to be a part of that.”