DemandJump was in the process of raising a Series Seed round with the goal of raising $1.5 million when they brought home not just one, but two “Best of Tech in Indiana” Mira Awards last year. The fast-growing, Indianapolis-based scale-up company ultimately oversubscribed the Series Seed round and successfully closed $1.8 million in capital.

“Winning two Mira Awards was helpful in raising the awareness and profile of DemandJump’s innovation and differentiation in the marketplace,” said Christopher Day, CEO of DemandJump. “We oversubscribed the Series Seed round and caught the attention of several key research analysts including Intelligentsia, Forrester and Gartner, and made important media contacts.”

CEO Day said the instant exposure from the Mira Awards was helpful with independent validation for investors and definitely raised awareness of the brand. DemandJump can directly attribute a 10 percent lift in social media followers and a 20 percent increase in website traffic to participating in the Mira Awards.

DemandJump CEO Christopher Day accepts the New Startup of the Year Award from 2015 recipient Max Yoder of Lessonly, Lauren Petersen and Mike Langellier of TechPoint.

DemandJump included the Mira Awards nominee badge and winner badge on its website, wrote blog posts about being a nominee and two-award category winner, promoted their winner status through social media channels, and even included information about winning Innovation of the Year and New Startup of the Year in their investor presentation decks.

Here are some more of Christopher Day’s replies to our Mira Awards impact questions.

What advice do you have for this year’s Mira Award nominees?

No one will tell your story any better than you do. My advice is that companies in Indiana need to be more proud and confident with the problems they are solving. We are typically more humble here in Indiana, but there is nothing wrong with making sure the community and the world are aware of the impact of the technology or service you are providing and how it is solving real problems for customers in a differentiated approach.

What does it mean to you and your team to be Mira Award winners?

The most credible awards are those that companies don’t have to pay for and where the entries are judged by a panel of their peers. The Mira Awards are truly authentic in that they are focused on objectively highlighting companies that are excelling in their respective verticals.

What’s it like hearing your name called out as the winner at the Mira Awards gala?

It’s an honor and extremely humbling. So proud for the team. Team members literally work day and night all year long trying to get ideas productized and into the market. Their families, children and others all make sacrifices in terms of ‘competing for time.’ This is not meant in a bad way, but rather building a company from scratch is extremely difficult.

I have literally seen blood, sweat and tears as we have built DemandJump. It is not easy to say the least, and for the team to get a moment to exhale and reflect on what has been accomplished is a beautiful thing to experience.

What’s next for your company? How are things going?

It took us a year to build the initial DemandJump AIM Platform. But we cannot stop there. We continue to make massive discoveries and are working day and night to get these discoveries productized in the platform. We are going-to-market directly to enterprise customers and also with Fortune 500 channel partners.

What do you want people to know about the Mira Awards and the impact it has had on your team?

The bonding cannot be underestimated. When a team goes through a grueling process — such as building a company — and is lucky enough to get peer recognition like the Mira Awards, the instantaneous level of bonding that occurs is one of the most beautiful things in my professional life that I have ever seen.

Life is about relationships … period. To watch people feed off of each others successes, and make the most of this short time we have on this planet, is a unique and beautiful experience.

If we can wake up every day, do something that we are truly passionate about, deliver value and make the world a better place … well then, we never a work a day in our lives! That is the ultimate place to be in life!