Did the EIC Accelerator Pay Off for Bogen's Magnetic Encoders?

Every robot joint, machine tool axis and linear motor needs to know where it is, and an encoder tells it. Bogen Electronic GmbH of Berlin made the magnetic version: tapes and rings carrying a pattern of tiny magnetic poles, and sensing heads that read them. In the EIC SME Instrument Phase 2 round of 9 January 2019, the forerunner of today's EIC Accelerator, it was selected for MASMA, "Magnetic measurement with Absolute Single digit Micron Accuracy", a €2,775,000 project with an EU contribution of €1,942,500, grant only, according to CORDIS and the European Commission's list of selected companies, which names Bogen as the project's only beneficiary.

The project began on 1 May 2019. On 27 April 2020 the Charlottenburg local court in Berlin opened insolvency proceedings over the company's assets (case 36b IN 2237/20), according to the Berlin commercial register as shown by North Data. The insolvency administrator, Justus Schneidewind, sold the business to the Italian encoder maker Lika Electronic with effect from 1 October 2020 and kept all jobs, according to insolvenz-portal.de. The Berlin plant now trades as Bogen Magnetics GmbH. The company that won the grant is still in liquidation six years later.

What Became of Bogen

Two companies now carry the name. The old one, Bogen Electronic GmbH, has been listed in liquidation since July 2020; a liquidator was entered in the register in October 2024, and it has not been struck off, according to North Data. The business itself went to a new company. Lika used a shelf company registered in August 2020 as "Youco F20-H222 Vorrats-GmbH", renamed it Bogen Magnetics GmbH and installed its own chief executive, Marco Calabrese, as managing director on 22 October 2020. In November 2020 the register recorded that the new company is not liable for debts incurred in the business of Bogen Electronic GmbH, the standard clause when a buyer takes over a business but not its creditors, according to North Data's record of Bogen Magnetics.

Lika's own announcement, as reported by Evertiq and Magnetics Magazine, described the deal as an acquisition of Bogen Electronic and did not mention the insolvency. It gave the combined group about 140 employees and €17 million in turnover. The sale adviser, Saxenhammer, lists the deal as a sell-side and succession mandate that closed on 1 October 2020. The price was not disclosed.

Bogen Magnetics is active. It filed accounts for 2024 in October 2025, according to North Data, which shows no revenue or staff figures without a paid subscription. It is listed as an exhibitor at SPS 2026 in Nuremberg, and it showed the AKS16-MT absolute sensing head at the Automate show in June 2026, according to Motion Control Tips.

The Technology: Reading Position From Magnetic Poles

An incremental encoder counts poles as they pass and needs a reference run after every power cut to know where it is. An absolute encoder reads a coded pattern and knows its position the moment it switches on. CORDIS states the problem Bogen set out to solve: its customers were "shifting from incremental to absolute measurement principle, but there is no cost-effective highly accurate product available on the market". Bogen offered highly accurate incremental encoders and absolute encoders "with medium accuracy", and saw a market for absolute measurement accurate to between one and ten micrometres, which it called "single micron".

Magnetic encoders compete with optical ones, which read a finely etched glass or metal scale with light. Optical systems have long been more precise; magnetic systems are tougher, and Bogen's catalogue stresses that its scales resist "humidity, contamination, temperature fluctuations and vibrations". Closing the accuracy gap is the race in this market. When Bogen launched its X-class encoders with an 80 micrometre pole pitch in 2016, it said "magnetic encoders are nearly on the same level as optical measuring solutions", according to Electronic Specifier.

MASMA was to get there with three levers, according to CORDIS: a modular encoder that reads different absolute patterns, such as pseudo-random code or the multi-track Nonius code; longer reading distances through "new sensing technology", the magnetoresistive (MR) sensors whose resistance changes with the field; and smart functions such as external correction factors. It also promised "a chip-based solution for high-volume markets" and products "at the latest six months past project". Bogen had already worked on such sensors in an earlier EU grant, TUMAPOS, a 2015 SME Instrument Phase 2 project on tunnel magnetoresistance sensors with an EU contribution of €1,031,380.

What MASMA Promised, and What the Record Shows

The grant agreement was signed on 15 April 2019 and the project was scheduled to run from 1 May 2019 to 31 August 2021, according to CORDIS, which lists the project as closed. In July 2020, three months into the insolvency, Bogen announced the first MASMA product: X-RMS rotary magnetic scales that it said double the reading distance of an existing sensing head without loss of accuracy or functionality. The same article named the University of Vienna and the Portuguese research institute INESC MN as project partners and gave April 2021 as the planned end, four months earlier than CORDIS, according to Drives and Controls. CORDIS lists neither institute as a beneficiary; its summary says subcontractors would help with the switch to MR sensors.

CORDIS publishes no periodic or final report for MASMA. Its results page lists three deliverables by title only, a project website, a "Generation 1 sensing head" and a "Minimal viable product", described as the "first product with the new TMR sensor and absolute position measurement", plus seven conference papers and articles from 2019 and 2020, three of them on optimising MR sensors with co-authors F. Franco, S. Cardoso and P.P. Freitas. CORDIS still lists Bogen Electronic GmbH as the sole coordinator with the full €1,942,500, and does not show the project passing to Bogen Magnetics. How much of the grant was paid, and whether any of it was claimed in the insolvency, is not public.

Bogen's catalogues show what reached the market. The November 2021 brochure, issued under Bogen Magnetics, lists a new absolute sensing head, MARS ("Multi Adaptive Range Sensor"), for "virtually unlimited ring sizes and tape lengths", with a resolution of up to 0.25 micrometres and a reading distance of 0.1 to 1.2 mm, alongside absolute Nonius scales in accuracy classes of ±3, ±10 and ±20 micrometres, according to the 2021 brochure. The March 2023 edition lists an xMARS head with a reading distance of 2 mm, according to the 2023 brochure. Resolution is not accuracy, and neither brochure gives a system accuracy for the absolute heads; neither ties the products to the EU project. No chip for high-volume markets appears in either.

1. Longer reading distancesDeliveredX-RMS scales launched July 2020, per Drives and Controls.
2. Modular absolute encoderPartlyMARS absolute head in the 2021 catalogue; its link to MASMA is not documented.
3. Single-digit micron absolute accuracyUnverifiedScales rated to ±3 µm; no accuracy published for the absolute heads.
4. Chip for high-volume marketsNot achievedNo such product announced.
5. Products within six months of the endDeliveredMARS listed in November 2021.
6. Public project reportingNoneNo report summary on CORDIS.

The Insolvency and the Other EU Projects

The causes of the insolvency are not public. The last annual accounts Bogen Electronic filed were for 2018, published in April 2020, weeks before the court order; North Data does not show their figures without a paid subscription, and they could not be checked for this article. The insolvency notice on North Data is shortened, and the date on which the company filed could not be verified.

MASMA was not Bogen's only EU project at the time. In August 2019 it started Mag-ID, a Horizon 2020 Fast Track to Innovation project for magnetic ink barcodes read with TMR sensors, with an EU contribution of €262,442.39 for Bogen, according to CORDIS. The project's final report records that INESC MN has been coordinator since 1 August 2020 and that "BOGEN-Magnetics" replaced Bogen Electronic from 1 October 2020, the day Lika took over; Bogen Magnetics was budgeted a further €100,826.98. That report credits Bogen with a minimum viable product of a "one-shot" barcode reader. CORDIS marks both Bogen participations in Mag-ID as terminated, without giving a reason.

Why It Matters for Europe

The European Commission's New Industrial Strategy for Europe of 10 March 2020 names robotics among the "key enabling technologies that are strategically important for Europe's industrial future", and position sensors are a basic component of every robot and automated machine. Bogen's catalogues list surgical and service robots, factory automation, linear motors and medical devices among its applications. The 2020 rescue kept a Berlin production site for magnetic scales and sensing heads in European hands: the buyer was another European encoder maker, not a buyer from outside the EU.

The Verdict

Bogen Magnetics, Lika Electronic and the EIC have not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records and published statements, linked throughout.