Capital for innovative drive technology

Böhner-EH receives start-up finance: The Böhner-EH GmbH company based in Franconia, southern Germany combines the best of both worlds in industrial drive engineering: it has developed an electric-hydrostatic drive (EHD) that perfectly combines the benefits of electric and hydraulic systems. Finance provided jointly by High-Tech-Gründerfonds and Bayern Kapital will enable this new business to forge ahead with its product development in a targeted way and to enter into cooperative arrangements with international partners. 

Bayern Kapital’s Franz Wocheslander forecasts a rapid entry into the market for this young components manufacturer: “The Franconian company has recognised the customer requirements on the market for industrial drives very well and has developed a new kind of technology for various areas of application.”  Böhner’s electric-hydrostatic drives make it possible for the first time to use hydraulic forces regardless of position; for instance on moving robot arms, turning wind turbine blades, purely electric-powered operating components on farming vehicles as well as on many types of machine and plant. “Where greater forces are needed but only tight spaces are available, where rapid movements with temporarily high forces are needed regardless of position and where adverse ambient conditions prevail, Böhner-EH GmbH’s drives are the ideal option,” says Benjamin Erhart of High-Tech Gründerfonds.  Kai Böhner, the inventor, adds: “The benefit to both the manufacturers and operators of plant also consists of the fact that more compact and powerful drives make it possible to achieve energy savings of up to 90 percent.”

Energy saving and perfect in all positions
Böhner-EH’s innovation makes it possible to integrate all the required assemblies in one compact device that is set up as a self-contained system. The electric motor of the EH-D has hydraulic oil flowing through it and therefore has optimum cooling properties. The drive can be located wherever desired regardless of the installation position and environmental factors. The enclosed system with a lifelong oil fill means that it is maintenance free, has a very long life due to low wear and can be used even where hydraulic oil pollution (e.g. during maintenance work and also operation) would otherwise incur high loss of production costs. The very low noise emission, thanks to the design, is also an advantage in many applications.

Due to low dead mass to be moved, the EH-D is highly dynamic and therefore has very good acceleration and control behaviour. It is also suited to updating machines hitherto run with conventional hydraulics and to making them, depending on the individual case, significantly more energy efficient. As a drive component manufacturer, Böhner-EH GmbH offers product series that can be flexibly combined for this purpose.

Linear movement on industrial production processes has up to now been driven either electromechanically, hydraulically or pneumatically. Böhner’s electric-hydrostatic drive now combines the advantages of single electromechanical drives with hydraulic operation in a unique way.

About Böhner-EH GmbH
Böhner-EH GmbH develops and sells innovative electric-hydrostatic direct drives for a very wide range of applications in machinery and plant engineering, traffic technology as well as renewable energy technology. Böhner-EH GmbH emanated from a firm of special machinery engineers, in existence for more than 40 years, where work on developing the EH-D has been ongoing for many years already.

Contact:
Böhner-EH GmbH
Jochen Seeghitz
Managing Director
Fürstenforster Str. 9
96152 Burghaslach
Tel.: +49 9552 9234-50
Fax: +49 9552 9234-64
j.seeghitz@eh-d.de
www.eh-d.de

About Bayern Kapital:
Bayern Kapital was set up in 1995 as part of the Bavarian state government’s “Bavarian Future Initiative” aimed at furnishing especially new, innovative Bavarian companies with venture capital. To date, Bayern Kapital has invested about EUR 152 million in more than 185 innovative, high-tech companies. Bayern Kapital is available as a contact for businesses in the region and currently manages an overall fund volume of about EUR 214 million.

Contact:
Bayern Kapital GmbH
Franz Wocheslander
Ländgasse 135 a
84028 Landshut
Tel: +49 871 923250
Fax: +49 871 9232555
info@bayernkapital.de
www.bayernkapital.de

About High-Tech Gründerfonds:
High-Tech Gründerfonds invests risk capital in young, high-potential technology companies that convert promising research results in business success. The seed finance provided aims to enable start-ups to take their R&D project through to the creation of a prototype, a proof of concept or to market launch. High-Tech Gründerfonds participates in providing seed finance of EUR 500,000. In some cases the fund can invest up to a total of two million euros per business. Investors in this public/private partnership are the German Federal Ministry for Business and Technology, the KfW Banking Group as well as the six industrial groups of BASF, Deutsche Telekom, Siemens, Robert Bosch, Daimler and Carl Zeiss. High-Tech Gründerfonds has a fund volume of about 272 million euros.

Contact:
High-Tech Gründerfonds Management GmbH
Benjamin Erhart
Analyst
Ludwig-Erhard-Allee 2
53175 Bonn
Tel.: +49 228 82300-100
Fax: +49 228 82300-050
b.erhart@high-tech-gruenderfonds.de
www.high-tech-gruenderfonds.de