INNOVATE® Jacksonville

Music is a Passport, allowing travelers to walk into cultures, time periods, and gaining exposure to new ways of thinking. Avant ensures community members access to these windows of culture through diverse, dynamic and eclectic programming. By giving our community access, it encourages innovation by expanding minds, opening new horizons,...

WHO WE ARE Phase Eight Theater Company is the latest arts organization to be formed in Jacksonville, Florida. It is recognized as a boundary-pushing and socially progressive theater group. They’ve presented fourteen productions in its first two and a half years of existence having performed for hundreds of audience members....

The backbone of many new ventures is intellectual property – a swirl of ideas that can include inventions, branding, product designs, and a variety of intangibles that make an undertaking worth pursuing. Most ventures begin with curious minds asking questions, identifying a gap in a market, or challenging the status...

The UNF Step Lab, housed in the UNF College of Education and Human Services, positions UNF to continue to be a major contributor to the STEM Education ecosystem in the Northeast Florida community. It is a place where regional preK-12 students, teachers, university faculty and students, and community/business partners can...

Meet Hazlnut, the company helping to bring new-age technology to the small businesses in their community. Today, people expect to have access to restaurants and retail stores on the web. Hazlnut is an all-in-one integrated solution that helps companies develop relationships with their customers through beautifully designed websites and custom...

When innovation is combined with creativity, it not only captures attention, it can create an experience that can lead to change. Castano Group specializes in designing and producing these experiences: multimedia, multisensory engagements that change the way people communicate with brands in digital and physical environments. Castano Group was launched...

SORBOTICS is a market leading Artificial Intelligence (AI) software technology startup. They have developed the industry’s 1st AI operating system IIoT software platform that solves industrial enterprises biggest pain points. SORBA is the world’s most Advanced, Enterprise, Industrial IoT platform that enables engineers, data scientists, operators, and maintenance teams to...

Closing Bear is a fast-paced title company that offers title insurance and closings for anyone buying or selling real estate. Simply put, Closing Bear does all the paperwork when someone buys or sells property … but they do it better than anyone else. , Closing Bear launched in June 2019...

Haskell, headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida since its inception in 1965, is a leading global architecture, engineering, construction, and consulting firm with $1+ billion in annual revenue, 1,500 employees, and 20+ office locations around the globe. The company was founded by a single visionary named Preston Haskell who saw inefficiencies in...

A group of women who get together monthly and talk about technology. We discuss where it has been, where it is going, and where it is now as well as issues arising from it and what problems it can resolve. We help the ladies of Jacksonville get more in touch...

Each year in November, teams come together to invest their time in themselves to better their companies. Emotional intelligence, public speaking and teamwork are all elements that go into creating a successful leader. When small businesses begin to tackle big issues, PS27 Ventures, a Jacksonville venture capital firm, works with...

The Jacksonville Transportation Authority (JTA) is an independent state agency serving Jacksonville (Duval County), with limited services in Clay, Nassau, and Baker counties. In addition to providing public transportation options in Jacksonville, the JTA designs and constructs bridges, sidewalks, and highways through the JTAMobilityWorks and Safe Routes to School program....

THIS IS A GOOD SIGN Menuat started 5 years ago with one goal: to help restaurants manage their menus easier online and in-store. Our flagship product Menuat Go is a low-cost, easy-to-install digital menu board which is completely changeable and beautifully custom-designed. Our restaurant owners enjoy the ability to update...

Bethesda Farm began as a dream to provide the best-tasting, healthiest local eggs available and to use the profits to benefit the community.   In 2016, brothers Sean and Jack Hellein received the first organic hens on pastures near Jacksonville. From the beginning, the welfare of the hens at Bethesda...

Resility Health is on a mission to reduce the negative physical and emotional effects of stress. Their innovative, data-driven stress management program is personalized for each user. Resility’s wearable sensor trains people to recognize when their body is tensing up, and support from their coaches drives lasting behavior change. Stress...

BLUEWAVE Technologies is a healthtech startup and the creator of the BLUEWAVE, a device that can deodorize items with its proprietary ozone infusion technology in as little as 5 minutes, without using any water, detergents, or added  chemicals. The device is completely closed loop and filters out all of the...

Hiring doesn’t have to be messy. Say Sayonara! to the stacks of resumes cluttering up your workspace, and let Breezy help you find your next A-player—sooner. With Breezy, you’ll automate time-consuming hiring tasks like advertising your jobs, emailing and texting candidates, scheduling interviews, and gathering feedback from your team. Breezy...

With schools in Palatka, Interlachen, Crescent City, Melrose, and Florahome, Putnam County is dedicated to providing every student with opportunities to succeed. Science, Technology, Engineering and Math instruction are vitally important components in the formula for success.   North Central Florida is known for beautiful waterways, nature trails, and woodlands,...

We provide holistic, fully-orchestrated programs to help harness and deploy innovation. Similar to the platypus, we believe that the greatest innovations are an amalgamation of seemingly disparate insights and ideas, that together create surprisingly, unexpected outcomes enabling organizations to deliver their own toxic blow and outpunch the competition. We live...

That Lyfe, LLC was founded around the simple idea that having a great nightout should be easy and transparent. Our focus is on democratizing the nightlife experience through our iOS application, NOCTURNAL ,     This idea originated from an evening in a city none of us are from. The...

ELEVATOR PITCH Wander Media Company is the creative powerhouse behind a collection of destination marketing television channels airing in hotels and resorts throughout Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia. From restaurants to shopping to local attractions, Wander helps tell the story of the places and faces that make Jacksonville such a...

“Artificial intelligence (AI) has made its mark and has begun transforming every industry, government, and the lives of everyone on the planet,” states Ted Willich, NLP Logix Chief Executive. Ted is one of three founders of the company. He, along with Matt Berseth and Robert Marsh, started the company in...

The Northeast Florida Regional STEM2 Hub was chartered in 2015 by the Jacksonville business community under the leadership of Gary Chartrand. These leaders noticed that there was a disconnect between the skills that students would need to be ready for the careers of the 21st century, and the experiences that...

ELEVATOR PITCH “Every woman deserves to feel beautiful; every woman deserves to feel safe; every woman deserves to feel happy.” is the motto at Sparkle & Sabre, a small jewelry company specializing in stylish pieces that boost wearers’ sense of security and well-being. With a majority of available self-defense products...