Ynvisible is a spin-out of parent company YDreams, which was founded in June 2000 on the Universidade Nova de Lisboa (UNL) campus, by António Câmara, José Miguel Remédio, Eduardo Dias, Edmundo Nobre and Nuno Correia, professors and researchers at the University, and internationally recognized as some of the best in fields such as multimedia, virtual reality, geographical information systems and mobile computing.
The first three years of operations were dedicated mostly to intensive R&D initiatives in order to develop advanced technologies and prepare YDreams to achieve a leadership position in projects, services and products. YDreams also invested strongly into building a solid intellectual property portfolio based on the company’s core proprietary technologies.
To date, YDreams has successfully developed and deployed over 500 projects for clients around the globe; some of these have received international awards and been highly recognised by consumers and opinion makers. Major companies and institutions such as Vodafone, Nokia, Adidas, Barclays, Coca-Cola, Santander Group, BBC, JCDecaux, IDEO, Unilever, the European Space Agency, Lisbon and Amsterdam municipalities, Telefónica, the European Union and Portugal Telecom are among its users.
The precursor to Ynvisible dates back to 2005, when YDreams and UNL started a joint research initiative involving a multi-disciplinary team drawn from YDreams’ YLabs and from UNL’s CENIMAT (Centre for Materials Research) and Photochemistry and Supramolecular Chemistry Group. Each project member brought to the group its own expertise, namely in Interactivity and Interface Design (YDreams), metal oxides’ processing (CENIMAT) and electrochromic technology (Photochemistry Group).
In mid-2006, the initiative was extended with the signing of three separate R&D contracts between YDreams/UNL and three industrial partners. These projects were sponsored by the Portuguese Government’s Agência de Inovação (ADI), and their purpose was to study the viability of assembling electrochromic displays using as substrates the materials manufactured or transformed by each of the industrial partners: paper company Renova S.A., textile company Fábrica de Malhas Filobranca S.A., and visual communication products manufacturer Bi-silque S.A.
Each of these projects lasted around 18 months, having finished at the end of June 2008. The results achieved during these projects led to a continued R&D effort in this technological area and contributed to motivate YDreams to create a spin-out company focused on this new technology and its commercialization. Ynvisible was formally created in January 2010.