EIC Accelerator Report Card: Industrial Shields' Open-Source PLCs

Boot & Work Corp SL is the legal name; Industrial Shields is the brand on its products, its website and its press releases. The company, registered near Manresa in Catalonia, takes Arduino, ESP32 and Raspberry Pi boards and builds them into DIN-rail programmable logic controllers (PLCs), the boxes that switch motors, valves and sensors on a factory line. In the 3 April 2019 cut-off of the EIC SME Instrument Phase 2, the Horizon 2020 forerunner of today's EIC Accelerator, it won funding for IOTI4.0, "Integral Open Technology for Industry 4.0", according to the European Commission's list of selected companies, which names "BOOT & WORK CORP SL" of Manresa as the only beneficiary of the project. CORDIS records an EU contribution of €1,005,248.93 towards a total cost of €1,436,069.90, from 1 October 2019 to 30 September 2021.

The company's own about page explains the two names: Industrial Shields was "founded in October 2012" and operates "under the company Boot and Work Corp S.L.". Its blog posts are signed "Boot & Work Corp. S.L", and its website footer carries the tax number B65907990, which the Spanish commercial register data on Infonif ties to BOOT&WORK CORP SL, incorporated on 15 November 2012.

Where Boot & Work Stands in 2026

The company is trading. The Spanish commercial register gazette (BORME) published a change of auditor for it on 24 April 2026 and a new board secretary in October 2025, according to North Data and Infonif, and Infoempresa lists it as active with accounts filed for 2024. Its blog posted new articles through September 2026, including a July 2026 announcement that it would exhibit at Automation Expo 2026 in Mumbai with its Indian distributor and a series on programming its PLCs with AI coding assistants. Its footer shows a Spanish "PYME Innovadora" label valid from 25 May 2026 to 24 May 2029.

The biggest corporate change since the grant came in November 2024. The register recorded a capital increase of €46,795 in nominal value, taking subscribed capital to €332,322, the replacement of Albert Prieto as sole administrator by a board he chairs, and a board seat for Zamit Capital SCA SICAV RAIF, compartment Zamit 1, according to Infonif's copy of the BORME entry and North Data. Zamit Capital is an investment vehicle managed by the Barcelona financial group GVC Gaesco that takes minority stakes in Spanish SMEs, according to Capital Riesgo. Neither side has announced the deal, and the amount paid, including any share premium, is not public. The company still describes itself as "a private and independent company whose main shareholders are key members of its Management team".

A month earlier, on 31 October 2024, Industrial Shields announced that it was taking over "the exclusive production and marketing of the Controllino brand", an Arduino-compatible PLC line founded in Innsbruck, with Controllino founder Marco Riedesser staying on to design products, according to the release published by Automation.com. Distributors now sell Controllino controllers under the Industrial Shields name, for example DigiKey and RobotShop. No financial terms were published.

The Technology: Factory PLCs on Open Hardware

Industrial automation runs on PLCs from a small group of large vendors, programmed in closed software under the IEC 61131-3 standard, most often in ladder logic, a graphical language that mimics relay circuits. Boot & Work's argument, set out in its 2016 Phase 1 project, was that open-source boards such as Arduino could do the same job for much less money if they were packaged for 24-volt industrial power, DIN-rail mounting and electrical certification, and if engineers could program them in ladder. The company claimed its products would be "on average 50% cheaper" because they carry no proprietary licence.

Today the catalogue spans Arduino-based PLCs (M-Duino and Ardbox), ESP32-based PLCs, Raspberry Pi PLCs, gateways, touchscreen panel PCs and modular I/O, according to the company's product overview. Independent coverage confirms the product launches: CNX Software reviewed its Raspberry Pi 4 PLC in November 2021 with prices from €242.18, and Automation.com reported the ESP32 range of 13 controllers in February 2021, with deliveries planned for May 2021. The company says all products carry CE and RoHS marking and three M-Duino models hold North American ETL certification; that claim rests on the company's own page and could not be checked against a certification database.

What IOTI4.0 Promised, and What the Record Shows

The Phase 2 objective on CORDIS promised "the first interoperable, standardised (IEC61131-compliant) OSHW-based technology for Industry 4.0", meaning both new hardware and "intelligent programming software". The Phase 1 study had described three parts: a new generation of Arduino-based industrial PLCs, open-source software that brings ladder programming to that hardware, and a cloud platform with "Big Data" technologies for industrial use. The company wrote that the new products and software "will be ready by end-2020" and forecast €4M in revenue in 2020, "reaching 37M€ and 48 employees in 5 years", from 16 staff and 1,200 clients in 85 countries at the time of the application.

The project ran its planned 24 months. The final periodic report, covering October 2020 to September 2021, says the software platform "has already been implemented" as a cloud service that lets users program open-source devices graphically in ladder, offered as a freemium product with "a large and rapidly growing number of registered users", and that "an important number of new equipment has been developed". It gives no user numbers, no product names and no sales figures. The results page lists no public deliverables or publications.

The hardware side is visible. The ESP32 and Raspberry Pi PLC families launched during the project and are still sold. The software side is not. The company's current software overview lists the Arduino IDE for its Arduino and ESP32 PLCs and Python, Node-RED, Docker and the third-party CODESYS environment for its Raspberry Pi PLCs, with ladder and the other IEC 61131-3 languages available only through CODESYS on the Raspberry Pi range. It names no ladder platform of its own, and its former software page now returns an error. When or why the cloud ladder service described in the 2021 report was withdrawn is not public, and no cloud "Big Data" platform from the project could be found.

1. New generation of industrial PLCs on open hardwareDeliveredESP32 range announced February 2021 (Automation.com); Raspberry Pi 4 PLC reviewed November 2021 (CNX Software).
2. Own IEC 61131 ladder programming platformBuilt, not offered todayReported as implemented in 2021; absent from the 2026 software overview, where ladder runs only through CODESYS.
3. Cloud platform with "Big Data" analyticsNo evidenceNot named in the final report or on the current website.
4. Products and software ready by end-2020Partly lateESP32 PLCs went on pre-order in February 2021 for delivery in May 2021.
5. €37M revenue and 48 staff within five yearsNot achievedDirectories put turnover under €2M or at €2M to €5M.

Growth Since the Grant: Distributors, Products and a Fund

Within weeks of the project start, Industrial Shields signed a global distribution agreement with Mouser Electronics, announced on 5 November 2019 by the company and reported by BIS Infotech; the company said it expected "20 % growth" from the deal. Its products are also listed by DigiKey, RS and Farnell. In December 2021 the Sant Fruitós de Bages town council gave it an innovation award, at which its marketing director said the catalogue had grown 30-fold and that new facilities would open in 2022, according to the company. The register shows a move of the registered office to Camí del Grau 25 in Sant Fruitós de Bages in October 2022, alongside a small capital increase.

How big the business is today is unclear, because the filed accounts are behind paywalls and the free summaries disagree. The Catalan government's investment agency lists the company in its Catalonia Industry Suppliers directory with "2-5M €" turnover, 10 to 50 employees and "a team of 42 people", without a date. Infoempresa puts it at 1 to 9 employees and under €2 million in annual turnover, and Infonif shows about 4 employees. Neither figure can be reconciled from free sources. Every source, however, places revenue far below the €37 million the company forecast for around 2024.

Sources also differ slightly on the founding date: the company gives October 2012, the register gives incorporation on 15 November 2012, and North Data dates the first register publication to 16 January 2013. CORDIS lists no EU projects for the company beyond the two IOTI4.0 grants, and the company does not appear in any public EIC Fund portfolio list; its 2019 award was grant only.

Why It Matters for Europe

The EU's Digital Decade programme sets 2030 targets that more than 90% of SMEs reach at least a basic level of digital intensity and that 75% of EU companies use cloud, AI or big data, according to the European Commission and the EUR-Lex summary of the programme. Cheaper controllers for small factories fit that aim, and IOTI4.0 was pitched exactly as a way to bring Industry 4.0 to SMEs. The company's own Phase 1 study described industrial automation as "dominated by global engineering companies"; a European maker of open-hardware controllers, now also producing an Austrian rival's product line, adds a small independent supplier. Its products, though, rely on boards and chips it does not control: its website credits the Raspberry Pi trademarks to the Raspberry Pi Foundation and the ESP32 to Espressif Systems (Shanghai).

The Verdict

Boot & Work and the EIC have not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records and published statements, linked throughout.