AI for the European built environment.
About Lumea
Lumea is a vehicle for technology that solves real problems
Why Lumea exists
To explain why Lumea exists, we need to tell you about Klaus
His name was
Klaus
Klaus Stricker · Idstein, Hessen · 1938-2026
Age 87 · passed 9 May 2026. Grandfather-in-law to our founder. An inspiration as a man - and as a property owner.
What he did with his life, and what was done to him, are the two halves of why this company exists.
A - Klaus the man
He built a company people trusted
Klaus took over the family civil engineering business near bankruptcy and grew it to roughly one hundred employees in Idstein, Hessen. No-bullshit, sincere, grounded. Respectful to the people who worked for him.
Two specific things say more than any eulogy. His workers never needed a Betriebsrat - not because he kept it out, but because they didn't need protection from him. And on weekends, the company helped build the houses of its own employees: machines, materials, time. Literally the roofs over their heads.
~100
employees
~40
years
Idstein
Hessen
B - Klaus the property owner
Then the system failed him
Klaus also held property - privately, alongside the company - as a Bestandshalter. Under the German Federal Building Code (Baugesetzbuch), a municipality changes the planning status of land (the Bebauungsplan), and the law considers publishing in the official municipal gazette, the Amtsblatt, sufficient notification.
Legally public. Practically invisible. No normal person - and no professional Bestandshalter - can monitor hundreds of municipal publications, interpret them, and link them back to a specific parcel before the objection window closes.
Amtsblatt
City of Idstein · No. 14
12 March 1998
Public notice - public consultation on the draft Bebauungsplan No. 47 «Am Eichkopf»
… parcels 142/3, 142/4, 143 and 144 in the land-registry district of Idstein …
What it cost him
By the time Klaus understood what had changed,
the objection window was closed
Millions of euros lost. Not careless. Not a failure of judgement. The Federal Building Code puts the burden of vigilance on the owner - while making vigilance essentially impossible at portfolio scale.
What Lumea is
Three sentences, in plain language
01 · Vehicle
A vehicle is not the destination.
Lumea is the structure that lets us build, repeatedly - legal form, ownership, decision-making, money flow, credibility, sales, continuity. Not a company built to be a company. Built because it's the most efficient structure to do this work, with these people, this way.
We optimise for
Ability to keep building
We do not optimise for
Empire · Headcount · Theatre
02 · Real problems
The tool is never the point.
AI, automation, document intelligence, geospatial matching, data pipelines - they let a small team solve problems that were uneconomic to solve five years ago. The tool only matters if the problem matters. Attention stays on the problem, not on the tool.
03 · The team
A team of operators
Independent, precise, professional, choosing the work. We choose missions worth serving, the problem, the people, the craft. Then we deliver.
Operators who chose this - and who can leave whenever.
That's what makes the choice to stay mean something.
Why PropWatch is the first proof
The first proof of Lumea's approach
01 · Problem
A real problem.
Hidden planning risk. Owners with hundreds of millions on the line and no scalable way to see it coming.
02 · Edge
A relevant edge.
Domain expertise from inside one of Germany's largest corporate real estate operations. A modern engine that finally makes this solvable.
03 · Evidence
Real portfolio data. Real buyer feedback
PropWatch has been validated against a major institutional asset dataset, with early buyer conversations now moving towards pilot design.
What the vehicle is for
Positive impact. A life worth living
Lumea exists to build products that reduce risk, prevent loss, and improve decisions, and to build a company capable of doing that work for a long time. The aim is high standards and enough freedom, trust and energy to keep choosing the work.
Purpose 01
Positive impact.
We build products that materially improve how people and organisations make decisions. Products that reduce risk, prevent loss, create agency, save time and protect value. PropWatch is the first example. There will be others.
Impact is not a values slide. It is the bar every product has to clear.
Purpose 02
A life worth living.
We want Lumea to create the conditions for excellent work and a full life: curiosity, responsibility, trust, time with people we love, and the economic freedom to keep working on problems we choose.
That is not separate from client value. It is part of it. A team with clarity, ownership and energy will make better decisions, build more reliable products, and stay with difficult problems longer than a team running on exhaustion and slogans.
The team
Built by a team from Corporate Real Estate, AI, and PropTech.
Lorenz Wackerle
Founder & CEO
Led AI & Innovation in Corporate Real Estate Management at Deutsche Telekom across a portfolio of more than 10,000 properties. Master's in Social Innovation, University of Cambridge Judge Business School.
Thomas Raz
CTO
Fifteen years leading software engineering, R&D, and platform teams. Most recently CTO of an enterprise PropTech building real-estate solutions for large institutional clients.
+
Extended team
Engineering · GIS · Data Science
A deliberately lean, experienced team across engineering, product, data, operations, and startup building. Distributed across Germany, grown carefully and mostly through referrals - with deep focus on real-estate context, legal text, geospatial data, and production-grade AI systems.
Careers
Working with us.
We hire slowly, mostly through referrals. If you read German planning law for fun, ship regulated software, or know what a Bebauungsplan does to a parcel value - and you want to talk - email Lorenz directly.
“Lumea exists because Klaus Stricker - my wife's grandfather and the managing director of a property company - lost millions to a Bebauungsplan amendment buried in his local Amtsblatt. If a professional Bestandshalter can't keep up with the obligation, no DAX asset-management head can. The fix is provenance, not hype.”Lorenz Wackerle · Founder & CEO
Let's get started
A real shot - at the product, the impact, a working life worth living. Bring a problem, a parcel, or a question about where this company is going. Thirty minutes with Lorenz, in English or German.