Amadeus announced that HOLOPHONIX has become its own legal entity with dedicated resources and has increased its total capital stock to 3.99 million euros, and is seeking capital for a first round of financing to accelerate the company’s growth and product deployment.
Since its initial product launch in 2017, HOLOPHONIX technology has been adopted by several major institutions in France and worldwide, as well as by many creators, composers, and artists. “HOLOPHONIX technology aims to democratize immersive sound and spatialized mixing for live performances, to break out of the monophonic or stereophonic paradigm – formats that are still mostly used in the field – to offer users and spectators a new experience of live performances with an augmented sound dimension,” says Gaëtan Byk, founder of the brand.
“Nearly two million spectators have already experienced the HOLOPHONIX sound during the past five years, in the context of hundreds of creative projects or within the numerous cultural institutions equipped with our technology,” he adds.
Examples of the use of its technology and products include The Cour d’Honneur (Main Courtyard within The Popes’ Palace) Palais des Papes during the Avignon Festival, the Théâtre de l’Archevêché during the International Festival of Lyric Art in Aix-en-Provence, as well as within the Pantheon in Paris, and at major live venues across Europe: the Grand Auditorium of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (French National Library), the Comédie Française, the Opéra de Lyon (Lyon Opera), the Théâtre National de Chaillot (Chaillot National Theatre), the Scala Paris.
“The success of the HOLOPHONIX immersive audio solution and the demands we currently have to meet led us to accelerate its deployment. We have to live up to the challenges and the trust that our customers and users place in us,” Byk continues.
HOLOPHONIX recently announced the release of two new immersive hardware sound processors, and since 2022, the brand has also been marketing a software-only (macOS) platform called HOLOPHONIX Native, designed to enable immersive sound creation and spatial mixing on Apple computers using the app.
“We have nearly 40 orders from the presentation of the new HOLOPHONIX 128 and HOLOPHONIX 64 immersive hardware sound processors at the Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) trade show,” Byk states.
The company recently announced an ambitious three-year research and development project called “Continuum” in conjunction with IRCAM, Amadeus, and VRTUOZ, with a 1.2 million Euro budget, financed by its own funds and supported by the Caisse des Dépôts within the framework of the France 2030 program. The Continuum project aims to develop, among other things:
— An active acoustic variability platform, allowing the virtual transformation of the reverberation time in a room, without any additional treatment or acoustic panels.
— High-resolution convolution reverberation tools to capture the acoustic properties of a room and apply them in another space.
— Tools to transcode these room acoustic ‘fingerprints’ for reproduction on personal audio devices such as headphones, earphones, etc., in 3D immersive audio
“Our development plan for the next few years is clear; it is guided by what our users and customers wish, demand, and need, and by the challenges they meet,” says Adrien Zanni, researcher-doctor, developer, and HOLOPHONIX partner.
In addition, HOLOPHONIX announced the appointment of Frédéric Biessy as director of the new company. Biessy has served as a producer of live performance shows for several decades and is a founder of theatrical institutions with that include La Scala Paris and La Scala Provence as well as the production label La Scala Music.
“We are witnessing the necessary evolution of sound in live performance and more globally in artistic creation, possibly influenced by parallel ecosystems that are more advanced in this area, including cinema, gaming, virtual reality, and personal audio experiences,” says Biessy.
Since its opening, La Scala Paris, a contemporary theater created by Frédéric and Mélanie Biessy, has been committed to multi-disciplinary art forms. “A venue open to all artistic disciplines including theater, music, dance, circus, humor, stand-up, and visual arts, since 2017 La Scala has been home to an immersive and spatialized sound system utilizing 172 speakers capable of adapting to any artistic form, including the most acoustically and sonically complex ones,” continues Biessy.
The funds raised in this first round of financing will allow the company to accelerate the deployment of the HOLOPHONIX brand in Western Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia including China, and South Korea, and to advance the production of electronics designed by the brand and to triple the company’s workforce in the short term.
The company has also decided to set up an employee shareholding system to retain and reward its talent. “This opening of the capital will also allow us to involve our engineers, developers, and historical collaborators in the company’s growth,” concludes Byk.
The company plans to hire 10 principal employees in the coming months.
