In 2011 it became clear to Lumo Interactive that simply providing custom interactive displays for tradeshows and events wasn’t enough to maintain a sustainable business, so it began providing a software-as-a-service platform to help agencies and small businesses create their own displays. Now in 2017, Lumo Interactive has tens of thousands of customers across the globe, including the likes of McDonalds and Google.
The Winnipeg- and Toronto-based company’s software platform is called Lumo Play. It allows agencies, brands, and educators to make interactive displays for interactive projection on the floor or wall, as well as for touchscreens, without having to code. Lumo Interactive does all the work on the back end, customers just have to upload their own graphics.
“Really early on we came to realize that the people working at these agencies and brands had really good ideas and the ability to make their own content, but they lacked a way to make that content interactive,” said Meghan Athavale, CEO of Lumo Interactive, over the phone with ITWC. “So rather than recreating the wheel and making a bunch of new applications for every single event, we decided to focus on making a platform that supplies all the complicated stuff, and basically does the work for them.”
Lumo Interactive is the winner of the Information Technology Association of Canada’s Ingenious Award in the Small Private Sector category for 2017. ITWC is the award program’s media partner.
“One of the things that appealed to me about the [Ingenious Awards] is that they are heavily focused on innovative new companies that have something unique in the world. We are really honored that we got chosen because we definitely feel that is where we fit in the grand scheme of small businesses across Canada,” said Athavale.
Subscriptions for Lumo Play are currently split 50/50 between the personal version for end-users and the B2B version for businesses – the former being ideal for children’s centers, education, sensory, therapy, small business, and home users, with the latter being ideal for advertising agencies, events, product activations, and commercial digital signage.
The two real differences between the two versions of the platform are the pricing and features included. The version for businesses gets added features such as content management tools, analytics and reporting, and the ability to scale and manage multiple locations, while the personal version comes in at one-sixth of the cost with the basic feature set.
Lumo Interactive also just finished piloting its reseller program. The company is looking for reseller partners who have substantial audiovisual experience and are developing unique solutions in this space. An example of one of the company’s eight resellers so far is Erco, a France-based solution provider with an all-in-one attendant light system.
“[Erco] is using some software in a turnkey solution that no one else in the world offers, and that is what the reseller program is all about,” Athavale said. “It’s about partnering with people who are using the software and licensing it for unique solutions in the market.”
As for why Athavale thinks Lumo Interactive won the Ingenious Award, she points to the previous experience in the event space that gives her team of six a leg up on the competition.
“One of the big advantages is that this is still a very early emerging space and there aren’t a lot of companies in the world that are playing in this area,” she explained. “We have an extra advantage of the experience we have in this space that gave us a lot of insight in the market. We aren’t proving out our concept – we already have it. I think that really helps us stand out.”
