Lumos Technologies Inc., a Wilmington-based fintech company specializing in data analytics and predictive modeling for small-business lending, announced a strategic partnership with Lama AI, an AI-first loan origination platform, earlier this month.
Under the agreement, Lumos will embed its predictive credit model, PRIME+, which provides a credit risk assessment for small-business loans, into Lama AI’s origination environment. The integration is intended to create a more user-friendly environment for lenders seeking insight across lending workflows.
“Partnerships like the one with Lama AI are important to us from the standpoint of (creating) an additional delivery channel for the Lumos product,” said Brett Caines, co-founder and CEO of Lumos. “Ultimately, we want PRIME+ to be the most trusted, most widely accepted and preferred credit risk score for small business lending.”
Lumos’ predictive model, PRIME+, the company’s flagship product, relies on the machine learning component of AI, which means it primarily focuses on analyzing data, developing statistical algorithms and making predictions based on that data. According to Caines, PRIME+ analyzes over 2 million small-business loans over 30 years.
Caines founded Lumos in 2021 after a 15-year tenure at Live Oak Bank, a cloud-based bank specializing in small-business loans headquartered in Wilmington. He served as the organization’s chief financial officer for over a decade.
Last year, Lumos also announced a partnership with Wilmington-based banking software company nCino, involving the integration of PRIME+ into the nCino platform. Lumos also announced an integration with SPARK, another loan origination platform for small businesses, in early 2025.
“We believe strongly in partnerships helping drive the industry forward,” said Caines. According to Caines, integrating PRIME+ into other lending platforms not only offers another delivery channel for the product but also creates a cohesive, user-friendly experience for lenders using multiple platforms.
In the year ahead, Caines said the company is focusing on products that allow business lenders to monitor the changing risk profile of their loan portfolios, such as Lumos Portfolio Score, the company’s existing product that analyzes overall portfolio health.
“I think Wilmington is a great environment for tech startups,” said Caines. “It is a smaller ecosystem, but it is an ecosystem and it’s growing, and that’s very exciting.”
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