2022 Fire Awards: Violet Defense LLC shares the importance of partnerships

Violet Defense LLC was chosen as one of Orlando Business Journal's 2022 Fire Awards honorees, who were featured in OBJ's April 29-May 5, 2022, weekly edition.

Orlando-based tech firm Violet Defense makes ultraviolet light systems for disinfection and agriculture. It has raised at least $20 million since it was founded in 2012, landing customers across the country and growing its staff to 20 employees.

Here's more from Violet Defense interim CEO Dave Scalzo: 

Describe your company in three sentences or less: Violet Defense is on a journey to protect the places we live, learn, work and play by bringing the power of UV disinfection to everyday spaces.  With the only known pulsed Xenon solution that can be installed in a room, Violet Defense can uniquely provide a proven, cost-effective solution that can disinfect both air and surfaces when and where you need it. 

What was your company’s biggest accomplishment of 2021? In 2021, Violet Defense continued to expand the implementation of its technology with key strategic partners, including expanded relationships with the Orlando Magic, Roush Fenway Keselowski (RFK) Racing, University of Central Florida Athletics, as well as new international distribution relationships like Violet Defense Europe and Cyberasept in South America.    

Our parent company, Violet Defense Group, also closed one of the largest investment rounds in metro Orlando with its $20 million Series B round, which will enable Violet Defense, and its sister company Violet Gro, to further their geographic expansion as well as support additional product development and team growth.

How did you get it done? We were able to build on our existing relationships as well as establish new partnerships. The $20 million Series B Funding round was led by Florida-based Kirenaga Partners and New York-based Katalyst Securities.

How does your company stay innovative? Partnerships are at the core of our ability to stay on the cutting-edge. Customers like the Orlando Magic have been great partners in helping us develop new ways to deploy our patented technology to meet their operational needs. We also have had key strategic design partners like Advance Concepts, an incubator within Koch Industries whom we partnered with in 2021 to create a new vision for the future of UV disinfection solutions.  

What strategies have you implemented to recruit and/or retain talent in a competitive labor market? Our mission to help create a healthier world is core to what we do and an important part of why people come to work for Violet Defense. We want to make a difference in the world. We also offer competitive salary and benefits, and continually assess what else we can do to recruit and retain talent.  

What is the biggest challenge facing your industry? The UV disinfection space, and disinfection more broadly, experienced a massive influx of new technologies, many of which are unreliable, unproven or even unsafe. This has led to increased confusion among decision-makers as to which solutions they can trust. This situation makes education of the marketplace, and qualified third-party validation, even more critical. We need to help the market understand more about UV and what makes it a safe, cost-effective and sustainable solution.  

What is your company’s top goal for 2022? Growth, which includes continuing to build out the senior leadership team and sales infrastructure and expansion of our product offerings. In particular, we now are ramping up production on our universal voltage UV disinfection solution, which can operate in any country in the world, as well as introducing new technologies such as 222nm.

In the past year, what progress have you seen in the growth of Central Florida’s entrepreneurial and tech ecosystems? There appear to be more companies that are crossing the chasm from true start-ups to early-stage growth. That is encouraging for the future of the ecosystem to have success stories that entrepreneurs can look to for inspiration and guidance. 

What is the local technology and innovation sector’s biggest obstacle to more growth? We still lack a tremendous amount of early-stage capital to help our companies grow at the same pace and scale as those in venture rich environments like San Francisco, Seattle, Austin, Research Triangle Park, etc.   

Are you hiring now? If so, how many positions and in what time frame? Violet Defense currently is hiring with plans to continue to grow throughout 2022, adding up to an additional 10-15 positions.

Violet Defense LLC

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