19 September 2016—Two years after starting its own bank, the world’s largest manufacturer of industrial lasers is getting into the venture capital business.
The worldwide machine tool, laser and electronics company TRUMPF announced on 13 September that it has founded a venture capital company with the aim of providing early-stage financing to tech startups. The new arm, TRUMPF Venture GmbH—actually launched in July—expects to assemble an investment portfolio around €40 million in size over the next five years. The stated aim of the unit is “to fund promising young companies that want to play a major role in shaping the future of industry.”
Not surprisingly, given TRUMPF’s historical areas of strength and the emerging imperatives of “Industry 4.0,” the company plans to focus in particular on “fields of photonics and digitally connected production as well as in new manufacturing processes, smart components and high-tech materials,” according to the press release announcing the initiative. Christof Siebert, TRUMPF’s head of technology management, said that the company expects to participate in roughly five startups per year “once we get into our stride.”
Shopping at CODE_n festival
The company hopes to be “making contact with further interesting startups” at the CODE_n new.New Festival, which begins tomorrow in Karlsruhe, Germany, and runs through 22 September. One key component of that event, which bills itself as “Europe’s leading innovation festival,” is the Code_n startup competition, which comes with a prize of €30,000 for the most innovative startup among 52 finalists from 11 countries. Interestingly, one of the four clusters in the competition [PDF] is “Photonics 4.0,” which includes 13 contestants in a variety of photonics areas, and with a strong Industrial Internet of Things slant.
Based in Ditzingen, Germany, the family-owned TRUMPF reportedly booked revenues of some €2.72 billion in the 2014-2015 fiscal year, with more than 79 percent of those sales coming from outside of Germany.