Bela creates the finest tools for ambitious creators who are working with sensors and sound.

Founded in 2016 from the Augmented Instruments Lab at Queen Mary University of London, Bela care deeply about creating the best tools for crafting interaction with sensors and sound.

Bela provides ultra-low latency, high quality audio, analogue and digital I/O in a tiny self-contained package that can be easily embedded into a huge range of applications. Built on the BeagleBone family of open-source embedded computers, Bela combines the processing power of an embedded computer with the timing precision and connectivity of a microcontroller.

Why did you start your spinout?

First and foremost to get new music and audio technologies into the hands of creators. Even the most wide-ranging research agenda can only reach a fraction of the community that a company can address. Bela aims to change the way we create interactive systems through powerful yet easy-to-use open-source tools.

What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurial academics?

Get out there and try something on whatever scale is achievable. You’ll gain enormous practical experience getting your research into the hands of even a handful of users, and you’ll learn a lot of valuable skills along the way. Don’t worry about having the perfect idea or the grandest possible scope from day 1, just look for opportunities that you can reach and see where they take you.