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TULSA – Avansic completed its first international ventures in March, making redaction document tests for Canada and several European Union members.
That marks a growth area for the Tulsa digital forensics company, which in September will celebrate its fifth anniversary. “In our industry, that’s one of the oldest there is,” said founder, President and Chief Executive Gavin W. Manes. “We’re bigger, we’re stronger. We’re a survivor of the economic downturn, and we have enough cash to let us grow in this economy.” With the fourth-quarter slowdown knocking out hundreds of competing startups, effectively changing the industry playing field, Manes said Avansic has revamped its growth strategy. Instead of launching a series of offices in second-tier markets, Avansic intends to establish partnerships with existing firms, using their personnel to gather evidence for analysis by Avansic’s Tulsa labs. Manes said Avansic will create seven partnerships this year, with relationships already established in New Orleans; Birmingham, Ala.; and Fayetteville, Ark. “We want to draw more than 90 percent of our revenue from outside Oklahoma,” he said. It had already reached that point last fall before the company landed several large in-state contracts. Avansic, which approached $1 million in revenue last year, also will increase the size of its intern program this summer, from 12 to 22, while adding an apprentice program. Since past intern efforts led to several patentable innovations, Manes holds high hopes for the expansion. “We have a laundry list of products we want developed,” he said. But redaction could hold the most promise, with Avansic’s patented technology giving the Tulsa firm an edge as everyone from AT&T and Facebook to Tulsa County and the U.S. government seeks to protect private and sensitive information in public documents. While Avansic continues to offer consulting services to help companies and governments, with Manes leading monthly continuing legal education classes on the subject, his company will this year establish a new business around its proprietary systems. The effort remains in the planning stages, with Avansic studying whether to partner with an existing document-based company or to launch its own software sales operation. Manes hesitates to even attempt to gauge the market size, since nearly every organization struggles with protecting data. He divided the potential market into three categories: native files, Freedom of Information Act files, and litigation redaction. The last one alone could position the product into every law office in the nation, he said, making the redaction software’s potential enormous. It also promises to remain an active sector, since every change companies make to their information technology systems – even down to choice of printer toner – may alter the effectiveness of their redaction efforts. That’s what brought the international governments knocking on the Avansic door. Manes said the Canadian government and others wanted his company to test the effectiveness of redacted documents prepared with new printers promising more efficient PDF production. Manes said Avansic easily recovered the supposedly redacted text in their test files. “We didn’t make any money at it, either,” he said. “It was all for free. We were trying to help them and we couldn’t come up with an adequate revenue model for it.” |
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Copyright 2008 Avansic
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