4^th Annual Event Celebrates Entrepreneurship

NEWS RELEASE

In its fourth year of celebrating entrepreneurship, the annual “Florida Companies to Watch” awards program has selected the finalists, which represent every region across the state. The awards program is presented by GrowFL, a program of the Florida Economic Gardening Institute at the University of Central Florida in association with the Edward Lowe Foundation.

ASSLY, a Vero Beach based technology company, was selected by program judges from a pool of more than 150 second-stage growth companies. The finalists represent nearly $600 million in annual revenue and employ more than 2,800 full-time equivalent employees. AZZLY®, designed and developed an innovative cloud-based healthcare platform for the electronic medical records and practice management industry. The company was started in 2009 by its President and CEO, Coletta Dorado.

As a partner organization of GrowFL, the Indian River County Chamber of Commerce Economic Development Division is proud to support this program and nominate companies from throughout the county. eMindful, a Vero Beach company providing online interactive mind-body wellness programs, was recognized in 2012.

“AZZLY represents the type of industry ideally suited for Indian River County – clean industry paying above average wages with strong growth potential”, stated Helene Caseltine, the Chamber’s Economic Development Director. “We are so proud to see AZZLY become a finalist in this program. Coletta Dorado and her team deserve to be recognized for all their hard work.”

“We are honored to be recognized and among the select companies that have been chosen as finalists. Grow Florida and the Economic Gardening Institute have done an excellent job promoting Florida as the perfect place to grow a high technology company. Having our local Chamber of Commerce support these programs and recognize the value of keeping top talent from our great academic centers within the state encourages us to grow our company here and sends a message to others to come.”

The “Florida Companies to Watch” program consists of two rounds of selections. Now that the finalists have been selected, these companies will advance to final judging, where they will be further evaluated based on their performance in the marketplace, innovative products, services or processes, philanthropy and empowered employees. The winners will be announced in late August. The 50 honorees will be celebrated at an awards ceremony on October 23 at the Hard Rock Live at CityWalk, Orlando.

“Florida Companies to Watch” was developed by the Edward Lowe Foundation. It is a distinctive awards program specifically designed to seek out second-stage businesses from a wide range of industries representing all areas of the state, not just those in major metropolitan areas. In addition to an evaluation on past growth and projected success, applicants are judged according to their special strengths and impact in their markets, communities and within the state – deeming them “worth watching.”

For more information on the “Florida Companies to Watch” or GrowFL, visit http://www.flctw.growfl.com or call 407-823-6384.