Open Bosch Award: Bosch honors co-innovations with Atlatec and Grea Technologies

Stuttgart, Germany – The Bosch Group is pushing ahead with the expansion of its cross-company collaborations with startups and – despite the current economic challenges – the number of partnerships has tripled compared to the previous year. The technology and services company is working with young startups on product or technology innovations in more than 300 partnerships. Bosch has now honored its collaborations with Atlatec, a specialist in digital road maps, and Grea Technologies, a provider of logistics software, each with an Open Bosch Award. They receive the award for their exceptional achievements in joint open innovation projects with the Bosch Group. "An open innovation culture is the key to faster solutions in an increasingly complex world," explained Dr. Stefan Hartung, Chairman of the Board of Management of Robert Bosch GmbH. "Start-ups, established companies, and customers all benefit equally from open innovation projects - both business-wise and technologically. They are also an important driver for a competitive economy." At the award ceremony, Hartung emphasized the rising importance of cutting-edge startups because they are increasingly taking on a pioneering role and have important resources such as specialized knowledge at their disposal.

This year, an Open Bosch Award goes to the project with Atlatec, which helps Bosch expanding its expertise in high-resolution digital maps. The project with Grea Technologies also receives an Open Bosch Award. It impress with a software solution that enabled some 20 Bosch plants in China to improve their logistics processes. For the award, a jury evaluated Bosch's start-up partnerships in the categories of business impact, mutual benefit, and best-practice character for future partnerships. In its venture client unit Open Bosch, Bosch bundles its cooperation with young companies. In a collaboration, they benefit, for example, in terms of industrialization, market access, or even branding. "With our Open Bosch program, we can quickly identify business units and startups and bring them together in a perfect fit to establish a partnership," explains Philipp Rose, Managing Director of Robert Bosch Venture Capital GmbH (RBVC), the venture capital company of the Bosch Group. "Atlatec and Grea Technologies are just two of numerous examples how start-up technologies can be validated and deployed in a fast und successful way."

Atlatec: High-resolution 3D maps for automated driving

Start-up Atlatec received an award for its long-standing collaboration with Bosch in the field of automated driving. Atlatec is one of the world's most innovative providers of high-resolution digital maps for driver assistance and automated driving. The collaboration began with an initial pilot project in 2019. After successful validation of the technology, an acquisition was then even made in this case. With the acquisition of the start-up, Bosch positions itself even more broadly for its customers and offers all solution modules for automated driving from a single source.

Grea Technologies: Automated logistics management

Teams from Grea Technologies and Bosch in China earned another award. The Chinese start-up offers a country-specific solution for digitizing logistics management. Together, they have automated processes such as cost accounting, order processing or supply chain reporting. The teams have been working in a partnership for 15 months and have already successfully rolled out the solution in over 20 plants.

Open Bosch Award: top-class open innovation projects.

The Open Bosch Award has been presented since 2019 for outstanding open innovation projects between startups and Bosch. The award is presented by Robert Bosch Venture Capital GmbH (RBVC). RBVC invests in startups and has recently launched a fifth fund of 250 million euros for this purpose. In addition, the "Open Bosch" program supports co-innovation between the Bosch Group and startups.