Invented for life: investment focus on energy efficiency and AI
As a provider of venture capital, Bosch Ventures supports startups around the world whose technologies have the potential to improve quality of life and conserve natural resources. The Bosch Group is an innovation leader at the forefront of efforts to bring about sustainable mobility, climate-neutral technology, and connectivity. In line with this, Bosch Ventures focuses its investments on fields such as energy efficiency and artificial intelligence (AI).
“We invest in particular in deep-tech startups, which are based on scientific breakthroughs or technological innovations,” explained Ingo Ramesohl, managing director of Robert Bosch Venture Capital GmbH. “As a result, these young companies have great potential to bring about fundamental market change.”
Global and local: Bosch seeks out the best startups
Since its establishment in 2007, Bosch Ventures has established its own locations with contacts for the startup ecosystem in the global technology hotspots of China (Shanghai), Germany (Stuttgart, Frankfurt), Israel (Tel Aviv), and the U.S. (Boston, Sunnyvale). “As a global investor, we need to be part of the local startup ecosystem so we can find startups with potential, whose innovative technologies could turn entire markets upside down,” Ramesohl said. “Our investment professionals screen more than 2,000 startups every year.” But only about a hundred of these make it to the shortlist. Each year, Ramesohl said, Bosch Ventures invests in six to ten carefully selected companies. It also offers know-how and operational support.
Open Bosch: win-win partnerships and co-innovation with startups
In addition to providing venture capital, Bosch Ventures has run the Open Bosch program since 2018. This brings startups together with Bosch’s operating units at an early stage, giving startups a quick and easy opportunity to become a supplier, customer, or technology partner of Bosch. Bosch, in turn, receives early access to the latest technologies and can incorporate them together with its partners into joint innovations. “This win-win partnership enables Bosch to strengthen and secure its innovation efficiency and support the company’s long-term success,” Ramesohl said. Bosch has already established several hundred partnerships with startups through this program. “Bosch also sees startups as important innovation partners,” Ramesohl said. “Open Bosch empowers co-innovation.”
Successful portfolio: more than 100 investments in all regions of the world
The Bosch Ventures portfolio currently consists of more than 60 active investments. “When an investment comes to an end, we support successful exits like IPOs, just as institutional venture-capital funds do,” Ramesohl said. “The Bosch Ventures portfolio has already given rise to several successful IPOs.” Among these were Xometry, an innovative on-demand marketplace for industrial parts, and IonQ, the first publicly listed quantum computing company. The U.K. startup Quantum Motion is the third investment that Bosch Ventures has made in the field of quantum computers. The portfolio also includes the Italian open source electronics platform Arduino and the German AI startup Aleph Alpha. In China, Bosch Ventures has a stake in the battery recycling company Jin Sheng, for example, as well as in TrunkTech, a technology provider for autonomous commercial vehicles. In North America, the portfolio includes other established technology companies such as Syntiant, a leader in AI-based semiconductor solutions for edge computing, or Motive, a provider of AI-assisted fleet management solutions.