Moving into the wireless charging market
Puls focuses on intralogistics
Puls has taken over Wiferion’s industrial business from Tesla Engineering Germany retrospectively from 1 October. Tesla acquired the Freiburg-based start-up in June. For PULS, the takeover represents a move into the growing wireless charging market.
In mid-June of this year, Tesla, the pioneering US electric car company, took over the Freiburg-based start-up Wiferion, which specialises in wireless charging solutions. Now the Puls Group has bought Wiferion’s industrial business from Tesla Engineering Germany retrospectively from 1 October 2023. According to Stefan Seidenzahl, VP Sales EMEA and South-East Asia of the Puls Group, the US purchaser was obviously interested in the technical expertise of the four company founders and the development department, “but it had no interest in continuing the existing industrial business".
As part of the takeover, Puls has founded the Puls Wireless business unit. Wiferion’s existing industrial customers must be very relieved, because the company already has around 8000 wireless charging products in use in industry. For Puls, this transaction involves a certain amount of risk, because, as the purchaser, it is liable for any technical faults that may gradually emerge in the field.
Like Puls, Wiferion regards itself as a technology leader. High efficiency is part of the corporate DNA of both companies, according to Seidenzahl. “As a specialist in DIN rail power supplies, over recent years we have seen an increasing interest in wireless charging solutions for intralogistics,” he says. “The acquisition of Wiferion’s industrial business allows us to open up a new market with global growth potential alongside the DIN rail segment and IP65 power supplies.”
A 3-kW power supply is currently on the market, but prototypes of 1-kW and 12-kW products have already been developed. Puls has taken over all the IP rights, together with the employees in operations, sales, marketing and application support. They will continue to be based in Freiburg as a new Puls site. The devices will be produced by a manufacturing service provider until the end of the existing contract.
Developers at the Puls site in Vienna will be responsible for expanding the product portfolio. The workforce there will soon double in size from 50 to 100 employees. In future the wireless charging products are likely to be manufactured at the PULS site in Chomutov in Czechia. Seidenzahl estimates that the wireless charging segment could make up a double-digit percentage of the Puls Group’s turnover by the end of this decade.
You can find out more about the takeover, the Puls Group’s plans for the wireless charging business unit and the company’s other plans in the video interview with Bernhard Erdl, founder, CEO and president of the Puls Group.
