Markus Thill co-founded Germany-based industrial group Bosch’s corporate venturing unit in 2008.
Thill, managing director, said: “I joined the corporate strategy unit in 2005. The old topic of venture capital came up during this time, which led to the creation of the corporate venturing group. I quickly found out, talking to people in the industry, there is a lot of innovation we should know about. Our analysis showed we should be present in the market as a high double-digit percentage of deals are relevant and could potentially affect Bosch.”
Since 2012, Thill has been a member of the venture capital platform council and chairman of the corporate venturing roundtable at trade body the European Private Equity and Venture Capital Association.
Robert Bosch Venture Capital is also looking to expand its reach. Thill said: “At present, we continue to invest roughly €50m ($68m) a year. The key framework is what makes sense. No one forces us to invest €50m a year, and I am very confident if we have relevant dealflow we could invest more. So far we have only invested in Europe, Israel, and North America, but are now also investigating other world regions.”
He added: “We have both a strategic and financial mandate. If you are not among the best on the financial side, no one wants to co-invest with you, so we would not see the most interesting deals from a strategic point of view if we did not aspire to be among the financially top-performing funds. I care for the commercial side, Claus [Schmidt, another managing director] for the technical side. As we are co-heading the unit we are equally responsible for our target achievement.”
Thill holds degrees in mathematics and physics, in particular a doctorate in physics from the University of Paris. He said because of this academic background “technology and innovation are close to my heart”.