Part of the song that is used in some of the largest nightclubs in the world has Portuguese hands. This is possible thanks to the Wondering, startup headquartered in Braga, which develops audio technology for musicians, sound engineers, DJ’s and producers, especially for the international market, and that has already turned a profit in the second year of operations. But until the birth of the project there was a marathon to go.
The idea started to be thought of in 2001. Nuno Santos had, at the time, 19 years old and was returning from England. "The Wonder grew out of a strong desire in making things happen, such as the name says. Had the dream of the electronics, and eventually join the passion for technology with the passion for music, because I’ve always used a computer to create music."
The passion was shared with two friends, Rui Antunes and Bruno Brandão. However, Nuno Santos already started to create electronic music with the programs that existed. Shortly after, the founder of the Imagining ended up studying Engineering of Systems and Informatics. Already licensed, passed by the electronics industry. He worked in several companies in the area, among which the Edigma, which creates digital solutions interactive multi-touch and gesture recognition.
The Wonder was only founded in may 2014, through the creation of systems and applications that work on smartphones and tablets iOS (Apple) and Android. In the case of the software from Google, the bet was more rewarding. "Initially, Android was not associated with the audio industry, which meant that there were very less applications in this area." The Wonder has released in the past year the DRC, a virtual analogue synthesizer, that is, that tries to reproduce the original sounds of a piece of equipment hard. The combination of these two factors has generated a great opportunity to bet on the international market.
the United States is the largest market and account for almost one-third of sales (30%), followed by Germany (15%), Uk (7%), France (6%) and Italy (5%). Portugal only represents 1% of sales and this has to do with the fact that this type of technology to be used mainly in large cities, such as san Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, London, Paris and Berlin.
With the bet on the international market, the Imagining and obtained revenue of 60 thousand euros in the last year, which enabled us to reach to the profits on the second year of activity. For this year, the expectations are higher and we expect a billing of 110 thousand euros.
With a total investment of 12 500 euros over the course of two years, Imagining away the hypothesis of resort to foreign investment and wants to increase their own sales. "I prefer to apply more effort to developing my business than apply it to the demand of investors", says Nuno Santos.
"I Prefer to apply more effort to developing my business than apply it to looking for investors"
to Fester in the building GNRation, space oriented to the promotion of artistic activities and for the exploitation and dissemination of the digital arts, the Wondering account currently with two people, one of them full-time. In addition to the founder, Nuno Santos, just for joining the friend Bruno Brandão, an economist and businessman by profession and also is a great love for music.
With three applications on the market, this startup already has more than 30 thousand downloads monthly and was one of the finalists of the National Prize of Creative Industries, promoted by Unicer and the Fundação de Serralves. The phone conversation with Nuno Santos came just days after the Wondering have for the first time in one of the largest music festivals in europe, Eurosonic, held in the Netherlands and that has served to "understand how to get to the"artists”.
For the future, the big goal is to be able to transform the software – keyboards synthesizers – in physical instruments and that may go in addition to the applications for the smartphones. The design of the Harp Laser, with strings of laser beams, is one of the paths for the next years of this startup.
Harp laser – When the strings don’t exist but give sound
A harp with no strings but that sound is a harp laser. This is the first physical instrument created by the Imagining, and that is to be developed from 2015 for this startup. It began as an installation for the laboratory of Summer in the framework of the White Night in Braga 2015, but has already been used in activations of brand and events. The iron structure with more than two metres of height is one of the reasons for this interest. But the secret is in the technology.
This instrument emits sound synthesized electronically when the laser beams are interrupted with the passage of the hand, which allows you to create melodies such as a harp vulgar. The development of this instrument is one of the main projects of Imagining for the next few years.
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