"Not every seed becomes what you planted. The real work is knowing where to water."

You've moved from astronomy to corporate innovation. How does that scientific background shape your approach to identifying new business opportunities?

As an astronomer, you're trained to think: if the order of magnitude fits, that's often good enough. That mindset translates well to early-stage ventures where precision is limited and waiting for the perfect information or timing isn’t an option.

Part of my job involves identifying markets where Bosch can potentially play a meaningful role. We only target markets beyond Bosch's established business areas. These markets must be sufficiently large, enable technological solutions, and ideally be in an early stage where value chains are still forming – this is our fundamental approach.

What makes your work particularly challenging?

Understanding new markets is demanding work that often takes longer than expected, but that’s the straightforward part. The real challenge lies in uncovering what Bosch is truly capable of. In any large organization, there's that familiar saying: "If the company knew what the company knows...".

For us at Bosch Business Innovations and our partners, this fragmentation is both a hurdle and an opportunity: With the right strategic approach, it allows us to surface and combine capabilities in ways that competitors simply can’t replicate, creating a powerful and differentiated foundation for new ventures.

What would it take to close the gap between opportunity and capability?

My wish would be a comprehensive knowledge system where you could input a customer problem and instantly connect with the right expertise. Finding the person who's already worked on something related, discovering the patent that holds the solution, or identifying the technology developed for a different purpose that perfectly addresses a new market need. That's the missing link between opportunity and capability.

How do you connect customer problems with Bosch's capabilities across different domains?

Our Remote Health Monitoring investment thesis is a good example. We identified a growing market for monitoring vital parameters, not just for patients, but for athletes, preventive care, and elderly people at home or in care facilities.

Bosch is one of the world's largest sensor manufacturers with deep expertise beyond MEMS sensors. From automated driving, we've mastered multiple sensor modalities: radar, lidar, ultrasound, video, audio. We also have the ability to interpret and fuse data from various sources. This sensor fusion capability, originally developed to create and understanding of a vehicle's surroundings, can equally create a health digital twin of a person.

What truly captivates you about this specific aspect of your work – taking established capabilities and finding entirely new homes for them?

What excites me most is transferring capabilities developed for one domain into entirely new applications. Our electrochemistry expertise from fuel cells and electrolysis systems can be applied to carbon capture. Our radar technology for automated driving and vehicle interior monitoring can detect whether elderly people turn regularly in their beds to prevent bedsores, or identify epileptic seizures in hospitals. Similar technology, completely different customer problems.

My hope is that when we describe customer problems in new markets precisely enough, we'll find technology at Bosch, perhaps developed for completely different purposes, that we can transfer and apply effectively.

Beyond your professional role, what drives you personally?

I'm a hobby astrophotographer, mostly capturing distant galaxies and colorful nebulae. Besides that, I also play guitar - though I’ve stayed at a reliably modest level for about fifteen years. Becoming great at it isn’t really the point for me; it’s something I like to return to because it feels grounding and therapeutic.

And I like planting things. My family knows this well. I rarely throw away seeds. If something's lying around, I usually plant it, and then we guess together what it is. Recently I planted something I thought were lemon seeds, but what came out was a climbing plant, probably a passion fruit. It's a perfect metaphor for pre-seed work. You plant a small seed, see what emerges, and in the end, it might be something different than you thought. A lemon can become a passion fruit. And that rotation, that pivoting, it's absolutely part of the process.

How do partnerships and ecosystem collaboration factor into your strategy?

I believe one development we're going through is becoming an ecosystem-first company. I think Bosch can do a lot, but it can't do everything alone. We should only do or contribute things we can do better than others. For everything else, I'd partner with companies, universities, research institutions, service providers, whoever does it better.

This is essential for our venture building partners as well. They're not just suppliers. We build these ventures together. They have access to ecosystems we don't immediately have, which can accelerate our learning about what the market actually needs. Some of them have their own foresight departments. They're looking at trends, seeing where money is flowing. "Follow the money" is sometimes a very clever strategy. Where is early-stage investment, pre-seed and seed funding going into startups? It gives you a taste of what's coming in the future.

Looking ahead, where do you hope Bosch Business Innovations will be in 2030, and how will you measure success?

We’ll have succeeded if, by 2030, we can point to a strong portfolio of ventures that attract follow-on investors, draw in strong founders, and are recognized by Bosch as a real strategic asset.

That’s the role we play as Bosch corporate venture builder: helping secure Bosch’s future. And trust isn’t assumed – it’s earned by building things that work. That’s why my focus is on getting concrete early and helping turning ideas into ventures that stand on their own.

Want to explore how industrial capabilities turn into venture opportunities? Connect with Carsten on LinkedIn and join the conversation.