Robert Bosch (Bosch)
Canvas Category OEM : Automotive
The Bosch Group is a leading global supplier of technology and services. It employs roughly 421,300 associates worldwide (as of December 31, 2022). The company generated sales of 88.2 billion euros in 2022. Its operations are divided into four business sectors: Mobility Solutions, Industrial Technology, Consumer Goods, and Energy and Building Technology. As a leading IoT provider, Bosch offers innovative solutions for smart homes, Industry 4.0, and connected mobility. Bosch is pursuing a vision of mobility that is sustainable, safe, and exciting. It uses its expertise in sensor technology, software, and services, as well as its own IoT cloud, to offer its customers connected, cross-domain solutions from a single source. The Bosch Group’s strategic objective is to facilitate connected living with products and solutions that either contain artificial intelligence (AI) or have been developed or manufactured with its help. Bosch improves quality of life worldwide with products and services that are innovative and spark enthusiasm. In short, Bosch creates technology that is “Invented for life.” The Bosch Group comprises Robert Bosch GmbH and its roughly 470 subsidiary and regional companies in over 60 countries. Including sales and service partners, Bosch’s global manufacturing, engineering, and sales network covers nearly every country in the world. With its more than 400 locations worldwide, the Bosch Group has been carbon neutral since the first quarter of 2020. The basis for the company’s future growth is its innovative strength. At 136 locations across the globe, Bosch employs some 85,500 associates in research and development, of which nearly 44,000 are software engineers.
Assembly Line
Johnson Controls to Sell Residential and Light Commercial HVAC Businesses
Johnson Controls International plc (NYSE: JCI), the global leader in smart, healthy, safe and sustainable buildings, announced it has reached a definitive agreement to sell its Residential and Light Commercial (R&LC) HVAC business in an all-cash transaction to the Bosch Group (“Bosch”). The transaction includes the North America Ducted business and global Residential joint venture with Hitachi, Ltd. (“Hitachi”), of which Johnson Controls owns 60% and Hitachi owns 40%. The total transaction is valued at $8.1 billion, and the Company’s portion of the consideration is approximately $6.7 billion. As part of the transaction, Hitachi will retain certain ductless HVAC assets located in Shimizu, Japan.
Following the close of the transaction, the Johnson Controls portfolio will be substantially simplified with enhanced strategic focus, aligned with the Company’s objective to be a pure-play provider of comprehensive solutions for commercial buildings. Johnson Controls delivers a unique value proposition to customers, with its unmatched service and digital offerings that improve commercial building efficiency and reduce operational costs through its OpenBlue digital platform. The transaction represents a significant portion of the Company’s previously announced strategic evaluation of non-core product lines.
Li Industries Raises Series B Funding to Expand Next-Generation Battery Recycling Technology
Li Industries announced the successful raise of a $36M Series B funding round to scale up its next-generation lithium-ion battery recycling technologies. The round was co-led by Bosch Ventures, Khosla Ventures and LG Technology Ventures with Formosa Smart Energy Tech Corp., Anglo American Decarbonization Ventures and Chevron Technology Ventures coming in as new investors. They join existing investors, Shell Ventures and Myriad Ventures, to back Li Industries’ mission of providing the most circular, cost-effective, and sustainable solution for lithium-ion battery materials, under the guidance of Nobel Laureate Dr. M. Stanley Whittingham. Given investors’ interest, Li Industries plans to expand the round to $42M, which would bring its total private funding to more than $50M.
This new round of funding solidifies Li Industries’ growth trajectory to meet its partners’ growing needs for battery recycling services and battery materials. The capital raised will be used to construct a 10,000 ton recycling facility powered by Li Industries’ proprietary Direct Electrode-to-Electrode (Direct E2ETM) recycling technology. This expansion builds on the company’s Series A funding, which enabled the development of a 500-ton battery recycling facility in Pineville, NC, and a 1,000-ton battery sorting facility in Charlotte, NC.
Point2 Tech Secures $23 Million Series B Boost from Bosch Ventures and Molex to Revolutionize Multi-Terabit Interconnect for AI and Automotive
Point2 Technology, a leading provider of ultra-low-power, low-latency mixed-signal SoC solutions for multi-terabit interconnect, announced a $22.6 million Series B extension from Bosch Ventures, a leader in deep tech investments, and Molex, a global electronics leader and connectivity innovator, with participation from other investors. This Series B extension validates the demand for Point2’s technology in AI/ML data center applications and the potential to disrupt network interconnect in the broad automotive sector.
Point2 is also partnering with Molex, a strategic investor, to commercialize its E-Tube technology, a scalable interconnect platform that uses RF data transmission over plastic dielectric waveguide to enable multi-terabit active cables with 80% lower weight and 50% less bulk than copper cables. Compared to optical cables, E-Tube is expected to reduce power consumption and costs by 50%, with picosecond latencies that are three orders of magnitude better. Shattering the “copper or optics” paradigm for high-speed cable interconnect, E-Tube breaks the barriers of copper and optical cabling and is poised to become the next-generation multi-terabit interconnect technology.
JetCool Raises $17 Million Series A Funding Round to Meet Escalating Demand for Data Center Cooling Driven by the AI and High-Density Semiconductor Boom
JetCool, a leading liquid cooling company for data centers, announced today the successful closure of a $17 million Series A funding round. Led by Bosch Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of the Bosch Group, the investment round includes participation from leading technology investors such as In-Q-Tel, Raptor Group, and Schooner Capital.
The funds will be used to fuel global growth and further expand the company’s roadmap of next-generation liquid cooling solutions to match the growing demand for AI and high-density computing. As part of its investment, Bosch Ventures Investment Partner, Adam Jackson, will join JetCool’s board of directors.
Pico MES Announces $12M Series A to Boost American Manufacturing for Mid-sized Factories & Build a Connected Supply Chain
Pico MES, a software company that is enabling digital transformation for small to medium-sized American factories, today announced a $12.35M Series A investment led by Bosch Ventures and joined by new investors from Counterpart Ventures and Momenta. Existing investors Lemnos, Congruent Ventures, Union Labs, and SE Ventures participated in the round as well. Since its founding in 2019, Pico MES has integrated 10,000 processes into digital data streams from over 700 workstations and connected over 1,900 devices to its platform.
🖥️🏭 Pico MES Announces $12M Series A to Boost American Manufacturing for Mid-sized Factories & Build a Connected Supply Chain
Pico MES, a software company that is enabling digital transformation for small to medium-sized American factories, today announced a $12.35M Series A investment led by Bosch Ventures and joined by new investors from Counterpart Ventures and Momenta. Existing investors Lemnos, Congruent Ventures, Union Labs, and SE Ventures participated in the round as well. Since its founding in 2019, Pico MES has integrated 10,000 processes into digital data streams from over 700 workstations and connected over 1,900 devices to its platform.
Sensor Fusion with AI Transforms the Smart Manufacturing Era
Bosch calls its new semiconductor fab in Dresden a smart factory with highly automated, fully connected machines and integrated processes combined with AI and internet of things (IoT) technologies for facilitating data-driven manufacturing. With machines that think for themselves and glasses with built-in cameras, maintenance work in this fab can be performed from 9,000 kilometers (about 5,592 miles) away.
STMicroelectronics (STMicro) has added compute power to sensing in what it calls an intelligent sensor processing unit (ISPU). It combines a DSP suited to run AI algorithms and MEMS sensor on the same chip. The merger of sensors and AI puts electronic decision-making on the edge, while enabling smart sensors to sense, process and take actions, bridging the fusion of technology and the physical world.
Rising demand for SiC chips: Bosch plans to acquire U.S. chipmaker TSI Semiconductors
Bosch is expanding its semiconductor business with silicon carbide chips. The technology company plans to acquire assets of the U.S. chipmaker TSI Semiconductors, based in Roseville, California. With a workforce of 250, the company is a foundry for application-specific integrated circuits, or ASICs. Currently, it mainly develops and produces large volumes of chips on 200-millimeter silicon wafers for applications in the mobility, telecommunications, energy, and life sciences industries. Over the next years, Bosch intends to invest more than 1.5 billion USD in the Roseville site and convert the TSI Semiconductors manufacturing facilities to state-of-the-art processes. Starting in 2026, the first chips will be produced on 200-millimeter wafers based on the innovative material silicon carbide (SiC).
Garvis Raises €3.5 Million Euros for a Bionic AI Platform to Optimize Supply Chain Management
A year after the launch of its AI platform for demand and inventory planning, Belgian startup Garvis raised € 3.5 million to develop the platform. Investors include British investment funds Superseed and Scalebridge Capital, and the German group Bosch Ventures. Garvis’ technology enables companies to respond at lightning speed to upheavals and evolutions that influence customer purchase behavior. One unique feature: even non-specialists are able to use the platform within a day.
Businesses need a radical new planning method that uses risk profiles, insight and real-time data. The platform Garvis developed, maps relevant environmental factors and provides transparent, explainable insights and predictions of demand patterns for various industries such as automotive, semiconductor, retail, and food and beverage. It uses open-box AI to respond to global fluctuations in buying behavior. Unexpected changes in demand patterns are recognized early, allowing planners to immediately adjust their forecasts and keep schedules up to date. Garvis works with the University of Antwerp (Belgium) to continuously optimize the predictive algorithms.
Bosch’s new partnership aims to explore quantum digital twins
Industrial giant Bosch has partnered with Multiverse Computing, a Spanish quantum software platform, to integrate quantum algorithms into digital twin simulation workflows. Bosch already has an extensive industrial simulation practice that provides insights across various business units. This new collaboration will explore ways quantum-inspired algorithms and computers could help scale these simulations more efficiently.
One of the most promising use cases for the new quantum algorithms is creating better machine learning models more quickly. Hernández Caballer said quantum computing shows tremendous promise in use cases with many combinations of parameters and materials. This early research could give Bosch a leg up in taking advantage of these new systems to improve machine learning and simulation.
Using Machine Learning in Bosch IoT Insights
MIRAI Case: Micropsi Industries Automates Leak Testing with Intelligent Complete solution
Introducing Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing
What makes the Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing unique is our commitment to industry-specific standards and communities, such as the Open Manufacturing Platform, the OPC Foundation, and the Digital Twins Consortium, as well as the co-innovation with our rich ecosystem of partners.
The Three Axes of Micromobility: Supply Chains, Distribution, and Maintenance
In this report, we contend that micromobility, its challenges, and its opportunities can be broken down along three core axes: supply chains and manufacturing, distribution, and maintenance and aftersales. Our thesis is that value accrues to the one that vertically integrates along these three axes.