A Kilkenny based start-up is launching its first funding round this week to finance the development of a social networking site for guitar enthusiasts.

The company, which is called dbTwang, is developing an online community for guitar players, collectors and enthusiasts.

The firm was officially set up late last year by IT consultants Keith Bohanna and Fintan Blake Kelly, who had been working on the idea for about a year before the company’s establishment.

The website will allow users to give details of their guitar collection, view other guitars, and buy and sell their guitars online. ‘‘It’s a niche, but a valuable niche,” Bohanna said.

The start-up firm is backed by Gerry McQuaid, a veteran of the Irish mobile sector. The former commercial director of O2 is acting as an advisor to dbTwang.

Bohanna said McQuaid would soon be appointed a non-executive director of the firm. ‘‘He brings a combination of strong commercial experience together with a deep knowledge of the sector,” Bohanna said.

He said the firm hoped to raise about €140,000 by the end of September so as to finalise the development of the site, launch it and fund some initial marketing.

Currently, the firm is wholly owned by Bohanna and Blake Kelly, but a number of other individuals, including McQuaid, will become shareholders as part of the fundraising round.

According to Bohanna, the firm plans to have 700,000 registered users and generate turnover of €3 million within five years.

He said the business model would be based on a combination of sponsorship and recurring monthly subscriptions. The firm’s initial focus is on the US and Japan.

A second funding round is planned for the end of next year. Bohanna said the company would be looking to raise additional money at that stage, to fund further development of the site and a bigger marketing campaign.

The idea for the website initially grew from a love of guitars, although Bohanna said that the challenge was now to ‘‘beat it into something that made commercial sense’’.