Quick answers
Did Nigel Gutzmann co-found Lumen5?
Yes. New Ventures BC's Top 10 spotlight on Lumen5, published July 8, 2019, refers to "founders Christopher, Nigel and Michael" and lists him in its "About the founders" section as Nigel Gutzmann, VP Engineering. In a post on Lumen5's own blog dated January 5, 2021, Gutzmann writes "Since starting Lumen5 in 2017, I've been a part of hundreds of interviews for our engineering roles."
What does Nigel Gutzmann do at Lumen5?
He runs engineering. The New Ventures BC profile of July 8, 2019 says "Nigel oversees the engineering team at Lumen5," and his January 5, 2021 Lumen5 blog post explains the hybrid product-and-technology team structure he set up for the company's engineers. A client testimonial page on gtm11.com, checked on September 22, 2026, attributes a quote to "Nigel Gutzmann, CTO, Lumen5," though that page carries no date.
What did Nigel Gutzmann do before Lumen5?
The Globe and Mail reported on August 15, 2014 that Gutzmann, then 21, had launched a music streaming site called Covr.fm with two friends, and that after it earned a total of $12 the team pivoted into marketing software with Snip.ly, which embeds a call-to-action on shared web pages. The same article says he met Michael Cheng and Christopher Bowal in 2013 at The Next 36 program in Toronto.
What is Lumen5?
Lumen5's own site, checked on September 22, 2026, describes itself as an AI video maker that generates videos from text. The New Ventures BC profile of July 8, 2019 explains the mechanism: the algorithm identifies key messages in an article or blog post, builds a storyboard, then matches video, photo and audio from its library. The company is based in Vancouver and won the top prize at the 2019 New Ventures BC Competition, which BetaKit reported on September 23, 2019.