Minima Processor: The EIC Accelerator Winner That Bosch Bought

Every battery-powered sensor, earbud and wearable spends energy on computing, and chips are usually run at a comfortable voltage margin to be safe. Minima Processor, founded in Oulu in 2016, built a business on removing that margin: technology that lets a chip run close to the lowest voltage at which it still works, adjusting in real time, and so use a fraction of the energy.

In June 2021 Minima applied to the European Innovation Council for support to turn the method into design tools that chip makers could use themselves. In November 2021 it announced it had been selected, and on 19 June 2022 it signed a grant agreement for €2,448,250 towards a €3.50 million project. By July 2022 it had been sold to Bosch, and CORDIS records the project as "terminated on 20 July 2022". On 31 December 2023 the Finnish company was merged into Robert Bosch Oy and ceased to exist. This is the story of an EIC winner whose outcome was an exit.

What Happened to Minima

The sale was quiet. The advisory firm Acuity Advisors lists it as a July 2022 transaction with Robert Bosch, and the deal tracker Nordic 9 records the acquisition with undisclosed terms. Neither Bosch nor Minima published a press release that we could find. What the Finnish register shows, as summarised by Taloustutka, is the end of the company: operations ceased on 31 December 2023, when it was merged into Bosch's Finnish subsidiary.

The Technology: Running Chips on the Edge

Digital circuits are normally run at a supply voltage well above the minimum they need, to cover worst-case temperature, ageing and manufacturing variation. Energy use rises with the square of voltage, so that safety margin is expensive. Minima's approach, which it called dynamic margining, monitors the circuit while it runs and lowers the voltage towards the threshold at which transistors switch, keeping just enough margin for the task, data and conditions at that moment. The company's earlier Horizon 2020 project claimed the method "reduces the energy need of digital computing by up to 20x compared to legacy solutions".

The EIC application, MINIMA EDA, targeted the bottleneck in selling that idea. Minima had been doing much of the implementation work for customers itself. Its November 2021 announcement explained that "tooling our solution enables our customers to explore and implement the technology more independently, enabling a step function in business growth".

What Happened to the EIC Project

MINIMA EDA is listed on CORDIS with a start date of 1 January 2022 and a planned end of 31 December 2023. The grant agreement was signed on 19 June 2022, and the project was "terminated on 20 July 2022", the month of the Bosch sale. Its only report, for 2022, restates the plan: Minima EDA software that "reduces the custom integration work from 4 months to approximately 3 days", and Minima IP for memory and signal processors. It reports no completed result. Minima's earlier Horizon 2020 project, MINIMA, ran from June 2017 to May 2019 with an EU contribution of €1,690,325 towards a €2.41 million budget.

1. EDA tools for independent customer implementationUnknownThe 2022 report restates the plan; no product launch is public.
2. A two-year EIC projectTerminatedSigned 19 June 2022, terminated 20 July 2022.
3. Growth as an independent companyEndedSold to Bosch in July 2022 and merged away in December 2023.

CORDIS does not show how much of the €2.45 million was paid before termination, and neither the EIC, Bosch nor Minima has said.

The Money

Minima's last accounts show a small IP company that never reached scale on its own. Revenue for the year to September 2021 was €409,066 with 13 employees, figures also reported by Asiakastieto. In the year to September 2022, spanning the sale, revenue fell to €300,308 and the net loss rose to €1,993,470. The final period to December 2023 shows €49,444 of revenue, a €1,150,873 loss and no employees. Deal trackers put the venture money raised before the sale at between $6.19 million and $7.95 million.

Why Europe Should Care

Chip design is one of the capabilities the EU has tried to strengthen with its 2023 Chips Act. Seen that way, Minima's fate is not the worst one: its technology went to a European industrial group rather than leaving the continent. But the EIC's model is to fund companies to grow into independent champions, often with an equity stake that shares in the upside. A sale one month after the grant was signed means the public programme supported the company to the point of exit without a visible public return, and with no public account of what was paid.

The Verdict

Bosch and the former Minima team have not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records and published statements, linked throughout.