Lumel
👤 Gopal Krishnamurthy (He ran a profitable Microsoft BI consultancy for a decade, sold it in 2021, and self-funded Lumel with the proceeds.)🌐 site𝕏LinkedIn
Sold his BI services firm, put the cash into products, and built a $12M ARR EPM suite on Power BI.
Will it work? · our read
Platform leverage. Domain expert turned a decade of Microsoft-BI credibility and his own capital into a $12M ARR suite that distributes itself inside Power BI. Real—but Microsoft owns the platform.
01How the money moves
List apps on Microsoft AppSource inside Power BI
→
Enterprise BI teams install and adopt them
→
Charge per-user and per-capacity subscriptions
02The numbers
$12M+ ARRStatedARR run rate, self-funded
2025-05
Run rate stated by the founder on the Practical Founders podcast, May 2025; customer count from Lumel's own site.
Self-funded from the sale of his Microsoft-BI services firm; no outside VC.
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- The CENTS scorecard — where it's strong, where it's soft
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See a full teardown, free → Transistor.fmSourcesSources last checked 30 July 2026
Practical Founders #145 — Gopal Krishnamurthy (May 2025): over $12M ARR run rate, 300 employees in four years, self-funded.Practical Founders #34: sold his Visual BI services firm to fund the products business.lumel.com: 3,000+ companies use Lumel products; built on Power BI, Fabric, Snowflake, Databricks.Gopal Krishnamurthy, Founder & CEO, Lumel (LinkedIn).
Revenue is STATED, not filed: 'over $12M ARR run rate' is the founder's on-air disclosure on the Practical Founders podcast (episode #145, May 22, 2025), narrated by host Greg Head — first-party but unaudited. It is a RUN RATE, not booked annual revenue, and 'over $12M' is a floor. The 3,000+ customer count and Fortune-500 usage come from Lumel's own site. 'Self-funded' means Gopal's own capital from selling his Visual BI services firm in 2021, not outside VC. No documented drama; this is a patient execution-and-timing story. Subject checked: figures are for Lumel the products business, not the divested services firm. Currency already USD. We never score you.