Bosch subsidiary scouting for smart start-ups for accelerator programme

Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions Private Ltd (RBEI) is actively scouting for start-ups that are working on disruptive solutions in the areas of aerospace, agritech, mobility, energy, medtech and smart cities, to incubate as a part of its 18-week-long DNA Start-up Accelerator Programme, beginning January 2017.

With this programme, RBEI joins a long list of multinationals, such as Walmart, Dell, Target, Microsoft and Swiss Re, that are engaging with Indian start-ups that align with their business interests. The company has been reviewing 4-5 start-up pitches every month for the past three months, and is in the process of shortlisting a handful that will be incubated in a separate 70-seater facility within its campus in Bengaluru.

“The ‘D’ in DNA stands for Discover, wherein we host pitch days, hackathons and tech events to find relevant start-ups. ‘N’ stands for Nurture — we put the start-ups through an intensive 18-week-long accelerated growth programme to help build capabilities and scale from lab to market. And ‘A’ stands for Align, wherein we define and structure our engagement with the start-ups, be it a partnership, collaboration or joint go-to-market with our solutions,” Vijay Ratnaparkhe, President and Managing Director, RBEI, explained to BusinessLine .

Besides access to internal and external mentors, and Bosch’s components, technology platform and business solutions, Ratnaparkhe is also in talks with Robert Bosch Venture Capital GmbH (RBVC) to consider investing in Indian start-ups. “As a norm, RBVC invests in pure-play technology creation companies. However, most of the Indian start-ups create technology apps. RBVC has invested in start-ups from Israel, Canada, the US, France and Germany. We are trying to convince them to look at investing in Indian start-ups, too.”

RBEI is also trying to create a start-up environment within its own internal stakeholders — its 18,500 employees — to keep the excitement for innovation alive. “We are building innovator communities by empowering our engineers to allocate 10 per cent of their time in innovating outside of their professional ambit, which has nothing to do with Bosch businesses. Employees can post their problem statement on the Bosch worldwide website and contribute four hours a week or 20 hours a month in coming up with innovative solutions.” He feels this kind of engagement could stem attrition, which currently stands at 10 per cent.

RBEI has grown its headcount from 13,000 engineers with 179 patent filings in 2013, to 18,500 engineers with 560 patent filings in 2016, and is the largest software development centre for Bosch outside of Germany.

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