Carmel-based tech firm Lumavate scores $6M investment

Carmel-based software-as-a-service firm Lumavate has secured $6 million in funding, the company announced Monday.

This is the sixth publicly announced round of investment for the company—and its largest to date. Including this latest round, the company has raised a total of $16 million since its founding in 2015. Its most-recent previous funding round in 2019 raised just more than $3 million.

The new funding round was co-led by Boston-based Gutbrain Ventures and Lincoln, Massachusetts-based PBJ Capital, with participation from Allos Ventures, which has offices in Indianapolis and Cincinnati; and Indianapolis-based 4G Ventures, BioCrossroads and Collina Ventures.

Lumavate offers a no-code platform that allows users without coding expertise to quickly and easily build smartphone apps.

The company currently has 22 employees, about three-fourths of whom are based in the Indianapolis area. Lumavate gave up its physical office in 2020 to go remote-first, and a handful of its employees live in other states.

CEO Stephanie Cox said the recent investment will allow Lumavate to grow its headcount, with the goal of having close to 30 employees by the end of February and 50 by the end of the year.

The company is especially looking to hire employees for sales, marketing and customer-experience positions, Cox said. “We’re very focused on scaling our go-to-market team.”

Lumavate’s tools are designed for what are called micro apps, which are apps designed to do one specific thing. Though micro apps lack the broad range of functionality that an all-in-one app offers, they can be simpler to use.

A few examples of how customers have used Lumavate: Columbus-based manufacturer Cummins Inc. built an app that serves as a product guide for its marine products. Indiana University Health created a wayfinding app for visitors to its Riley Hospital for Children as well as an app with which patients’ families can get real-time updates on hospitalized loved ones. California-based wine producer Trinchero Family Estates created an app with a consumer quiz that suggests “mocktail” recipes that use nonalcoholic wines.

Between 2020 and 2021, Lumavate saw a 216% increase in the number of apps built using its platform. Cox said the company saw growth in both the number of customers and the number of apps created per customer.