Funding of over £100,000 for music technology spin-out at Queen's
A music-technology research project at Queen’s University Belfast is now a start-up company thanks to over £100,000 in crowdfunding.
Belfast company Mindflood exceeded their target of £100,000 within days using the crowdfunding platform Crowdcube, which allows people to invest in small businesses in return for equity.
Mindflood is the company behind the electronic device ‘Patchblocks’, which has been described as “a mix between a Raspberry Pi, a music synthesiser and LEGO,” by its founder, Sebastian Heinz, who is in the final stages of his PhD at Queen’s Sonic Arts Research Centre.
He said: “Mindflood was the first company from Northern Ireland to raise money through Crowdcube. I didn’t expect that we could reach our fundraising target in just two days. I love electronic music and was always fascinated by how to make it. But having been a researcher in an academic environment for years, I have found that I also love the entrepreneurial side of it – it’s taking something out of a very small, sometimes rarefied world into the big, commercial world.
“Primarily, Patchblocks are selling to members of the general public who want to make their own music and learn more about IT and programming, although it also has uses in education. It’s about making consumers creators – giving them a tool to allow them to fairly easily build their own sound environment and come up with new technology. I find that idea very exciting.”
David Moore, from QUBIS, which was established by Queen’s University to help develop spin-out companies, said: “Sebastian has really impressed us with his entrepreneurial drive to date. An initial Kickstarter campaign validated his Patchblocks concept and QUBIS was keen to support a crowd-sourced round of seed investment to allow the company to build a sales and marketing structure for its next stage of growth.”
Mindflood was one of more than 200 companies that applied to Crowdcube’s accelerator programme and was selected as one of six to pitch their business idea in front of investors in London. This type of investment has become attractive to private investors because of generous tax-relief schemes like SEIS and EIS, and also because of potentially high returns. Investment in Mindflood is still open.
Patchblocks are available from www.patchblocks.com and, from early 2015, the electronics online shop, Conrad. Patchblocks have already been integrated into the curriculum at Queen’s and Ulster University.