Company Reinvents Itself and Raises New Capital

Not every new company immediately starts on the right path for long-term sustainability. Adjustments are made as markets and technology changes. Luminate made extensive changes in its brand about a year ago and even changed the company name from Pixazza. The company’s direction has now attracted new financial backing. Luminate recently raised $10,700,000 from investors.

Luminate has developed several image applications, which transform images on  webpages into rich interactive experiences. The company has unveiled an app store for images where web publishers can locate and demo apps for use on websites. Instead of providing static images, websites using Luminate apps allow users to launch expanded content by clicking images. The platform may open in the future to third-party providers of image apps.

Among the Luminate apps that permit publishers to bring life to images are a Netflix app, which gives a showcase of available movies and shows. Another choice is a Wikipedia app that lets users see Wikipedia entries related to an image. A Twitter feed app provides a window to postings on Twitter about a person within an image. The Causes app creates an avenue for donating to charities by selecting an image.

Publishers can add a line of java script to all of their webpages and apply an app to images throughout the site. Luminate has attracted 7,000 publishers to using its image apps. These include MSNBC, TV Guide, and House Beautiful.

According to Luminate, the publishers using the company’s apps have 30 billion image views per year. With an estimated 3 trillion images on the web, plenty of room for new business exists. The objective is providing an app that delivers interesting details relevant to an image.

Website publishers can use free apps that provide information, such as Wikipedia. Fort apps that have advertising, publishers equally divide revenue with Luminate. Some of the existing advertisers are Best Buy, McDonald’s, Revlon, and The Gap. Unlike passive display advertising, advertisers are reaching viewers who intentionally select an image.