Open Bosch Award for startups Calimoto and Rossum

Stuttgart, Germany – Bosch is increasingly collaborating with leading startups for innovations. Now the supplier of technology and services is honoring the companies Calimoto and Rossum with an Open Bosch Award in recognition of their extraordinary achievements on open innovation projects. “In a connected world, an open innovation culture is key to business success,” said the Bosch CEO, Dr. Volkmar Denner, speaking at the award ceremony. “Startups and established companies can often solve increasingly complex tasks better, faster, and more efficiently when they work together – and this also strengthens the economy.” He added that both businesses and consumers benefit from product or technology innovations being available more quickly.

This year’s award goes to two companies: Calimoto - for integrating the Bosch Help Connect emergency call system into a navigation app for motorcyclists, and Rossum - which impressed with an AI software solution that automatically processes e-mail orders into purchase orders. The award winners were chosen by a panel of judges who evaluated Bosch’s open innovation projects in the categories of mutual benefit, best practices, and business success. Bosch already has several hundred partnerships with startups; this year alone, the number of joint feasibility studies (a precursor to potential partnerships) tripled.

Open innovation culture: a turbocharger for better quality of life and safe mobility

“Bosch pools ideas and expertise across company boundaries to achieve the greatest possible customer benefits,” said Dr. Stefan Hartung, member of the board of management and chairman of the Mobility Solutions business sector, speaking at the award ceremony in Leonberg, outside Stuttgart. “Our open innovation projects help improve people’s quality of life, for example with safer mobility for tomorrow.” The alliance with Calimoto is an example of how Bosch, in partnership with a startup, can make riding a motorcycle safer in the shortest possible time and thus save lives.

In a technology-driven world with accelerating innovation cycles, Bosch is looking to partnerships that transcend company borders. Leading startups are playing an increasingly important part in this, because they often take on a pioneering role and have the corresponding resources such as the requisite expertise and specialists.
In these partnerships leading startups can benefit from Bosch, in regards to topics such as industrialization, market access and branding.

Recent research from Capgemini shows that the number of partnerships companies have with startups are expected to at least quadruple globally from 2020 until 2025. Leading this trend, Bosch has set up a venture client unit, Open Bosch, which coordinates startup collaborations across all business areas. For its commitment in this environment, Bosch recently received the Corporate Startup Stars Award 2020 from the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). This honor goes to companies that are most active in working with startups and develop best practices in this form of open innovation.

Calimoto: rapid emergency assistance for motorcyclists

The German startup Calimoto received an award for integrating the Bosch emergency call solution Help Connect into its navigation app for motorcyclists. If sensors in the rider’s smartphone detect an accident, the Calimoto app sends important information such as the location and severity of the crash to the Help Connect emergency call center. From the call center, specially trained emergency agents attempt to contact the person involved. If the person does not react and the sensor data indicates a serious fall, the emergency services are notified immediately. This can speed up the rescue chain and as a result, save lives. Regarding the partnership on the open innovation project, Sebastian Dambeck, CEO of Calimoto, said: “We developed our app to make motorcycle riding the ultimate experience. Thanks to our partnership with Bosch, we can provide additional features and services for a safer and fun ride.”

Rossum: automated order data capture from e-mails

Bosch honored the startup Rossum for its collaboration on the automated processing of e-mail orders. This solution enables business customers without digital interfaces such as electronic data interchange (EDI) to connect to the electronic order processing systems of large companies at no extra cost. The result is less paper and fewer sources of error when manually transferring order data. Rossum’s concept is based on its own existing AI solution for invoice processing, which it further developed to handle high volumes of incoming orders. “Our partnership with Bosch has allowed us to demonstrate the flexibility of our solution when it comes to automating a wide variety of cross-company processes,” said Tomáš Gogár, Rossum CEO, about the open innovation project.

Open Bosch Award: top-class open innovation projects

The Open Bosch Award has been presented since 2019 for open innovation projects that stand out due to their excellent collaboration between startups and Bosch. The award is given by Robert Bosch Venture Capital GmbH (RBVC), a subsidiary of Robert Bosch GmbH. RBVC invests in startups and incorporates them into the Bosch Group network.