The company now known as Vevox (and formerly as Lumi Technologies) had its antecedents in Finland between 2003 and 2008 when it developed the Reactor platform that was initially used to create ground-breaking and award-winning interactive television programming. An application downloaded to a simple feature phone enabled the TV audience at home to interact in real time with live broadcast television. In July 2008, Lumi Technologies, as it was then known, was incorporated in London as owner of the Reactor platform. The key developers and system architect became and remain shareholders.
Lumi Technologies was bootstrapped until October 2010 when additional backing was received from Beyond Capital, an investor group comprising leading financiers, corporate lawyers and industrialists. The funds provided by Beyond Capital enabled Lumi to develop a unique product set, based on the Reactor platform, that could be deployed in a sequence of addressable markets defined by size and scale and by customer’s readiness and demand for the product. The business focus narrowed to the provision of insight and engagement through the mobile device.
On October 4th 2011, Chris Morris, Founder and Chairman of Computershare became Lumi Technologies’ largest shareholder through what was a de facto Series A funding. Subsequently, in December 2011 WPP PLC took a single figure percentage holding that was linked to a commercial deal.
The scale and scope of Lumi’s business was transformed when it acquired Interactive Meetings Limited (IML) in July 2013. IML’s business focused on the provision of interactive technology at full service Meetings and Events through unique patented technology. It was also the world leading provider of registration and voting technology for shareholder meetings. IML’s business complemented that of Lumi, which had itself developed a device agnostic mobile solution that IML had lacked. IML contributed a client base of 1,000 companies to the combined group.
In November 2013, the enlarged Lumi Technologies was one of the first cohort of technology companies selected by the UK Government Future 50 programme, along with Zoopla, Skyscanner, Just Eat and Shazam as technology champions.
In January 2017, Lumi sold its UK Meetings and Events business, IML Interactive UK, to a third- party, Crystal Interactive. This transaction created the largest event technology company in the UK. This disposal came as part of a wider reorganisation of the Lumi Technologies business. In April 2017, a majority stake in the Lumi AGM business (the core of which was the registration and voting technology for shareholder meetings acquired through the IML transaction in 2013) was sold to the Private Equity Group Vespa Capital. This was a subsidiary disposal. As a function of the transaction, the Vespa-controlled AGM entity took on the Lumi brand name; leading to the re-naming of what had been Lumi Technologies as Vevox, the brand name of the key product of the remaining business.
Vevox retains a minority interest (24.34%) in the divested Lumi AGM business and is entitled to a Board seat. In addition, a service agreement has been formalised between Lumi AGM and Vevox to underpin the future development of the Lumi AGM Mobile product. Lumi AGM remains dependent on the unique Vevox technology. So, while the separation is now definitive, the two companies remain inter-dependent and will continue to work to support each other.
Vevox’s strategic goal is to attain a dominant global position in the provision of insight and two-way engagement through the mobile device, deploying a market leading product set that is mature, stable, and scalable without the need for significant further investment.
