Integrated MotionMeet the management team
Foundation myths usually begin in a garage. For us it was an attic in the German highlands, called the Schwäbische Alb. At first just two, then from 2012, three friends put their heads together, to sound out the state of affairs in robot development. So what unfolds if an electrical engineer (Martin Schwarz), a mechanical engineer (Nikolai Ensslen) and finally a computer scientist (Andrija Feher) recognize the enormous – pending – potential if they apply the latest technology to unite their worlds? The worlds of electronics, mechanics and software? SYNAPTICON. (The name already promises a lot.) They set things up. And immediately get going. Thinking big. A little too big the first four years. They designed compact embedded computers to accelerate AI software. And programmed the first embedded development environment in the cloud, as well as a construction kit of electronic modules that enabled robot developers to implement high performance mechatronic systems in record time. Independently financing all these development ventures by offering an almost full spectrum of engineering services, from autonomous lawn mowers and electric bicycles, to entire industrial robots, semiconductor machines, and intelligent heavy duty connectors for customers across the globe from Hong Kong to Palo Alto. That was SYNAPTICON 1.0, if you like. Sturm and Drang. Youthful, fresh and daring.
Then, from 2016, strategic reorientation. Our team relocates to the gates of Stuttgart and also establishes its US subsidiary in Silicon Valley. Moving away from services too. Towards the product. Focused solely on industry and motion control – where we’ve experienced, in more recent years, the greatest need and innovation potential. And with newly acquired, strong investment partners – in particular prominent family offices and corporate VCs – we’ve entered a new dimension in financing. Since then, we have concentrated our passions on developing advanced technologies for the ‘point of motion’. Converting these advances into products that enable our customers to reach the next level.
Soon, after settling the company in its current home in Schönaich, situated south of Stuttgart with a view over the Schönbuch’s green expanses, come the premiere products. The SOMANET Servo Node series arrives in 2018, followed a year later by SOMANET Circulo. And by now it‘s high time to open up a Chinese subsidiary in Shanghai. SYNAPTICON 2.0 reveals itself. Experienced. Focused. Original. But no less ambitious as before. Now is the time. To fundamentally change the ‘point of motion.’ And redefine it for the digital age. For more growth, and to bring the future of robotics closer every day.
We are technology enthusiasts. Happy to confess. Coming together from all corners of the world and experienced in the most diverse forms of management and engineering. By harnessing our creativity and terrific technological audacity our aim is to outwit nothing less than physics. Because anything is possible. We believe it, no, we know it. And we’re working on it. To fuel innovation and progress in robotics and automation.
Aside from the electrifying fantasies of our planet’s science fiction writers it was above all, those eight young and daring graduates that inspired the creation of SYNAPTICON. Together, and despite the abuse unleashed by their former and anything but conciliatory, employer, the so called ‘traitorous’ eight founded Fairchild Semiconductor. Before setting in motion the unparalleled exponential technological development of the last few decades. Without these eight? Among them Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore (who later founded Intel)… We cannot overrate. There’d be no integrated circuits. No microprocessors. No Apple or SYNAPTICON. This all-enabling spark, which fuelled these most famous colleagues at the time, still powers SYNAPTICON today.
For us, robots are nothing more than computers with sensors and drives. Consider, from the very outset, computers as enhancement for the brain. Take this analogy a little further and robots come to represent the strengthening of the total human being. And it’s in this context – robotics as reinforcement – that our product naming philosophy can be understood.
Thus, the name SOMANET is derived from the somatosensory system, the part of the peripheral nervous system responsible for the conscious perception of sensor stimuli and the control and regulation of muscles. And MOTORCORTEX? It is inscribed with all the complexity of motion control, as is that part of the brain that controls our every movement. As for SYNAPTICON itself… (Greek synapse: connecting + Latin con: together) the name stands for the connecting of worlds – the analog with the virtual. It stands for the transmission of impulses from electronics, mechanics and software to a dynamically regulated whole. Otherwise known as INTEGRATED MOTION.
Sustainability needs mindfulness. Needs taking the most comprehensive view possible of the world and an honest look at what you do – do and can do – and its consequences. So SYNAPTICON directs its attention among others on its people: employees, customers and investors alike. Some devote nothing less than a lifetime to SYNAPTICON, placing their trust in the products, or investing in our innovative strength. That’s why SYNAPTICON, in the best sense of economic sustainability, strives to generate long term value for everyone involved. To this end, we at SYNAPTICON, ensure our work and actions are not only socially and ecologically sustainable – this seems to us a matter of course – but also future proof on a larger scale. This is our word. Our declaration and commitment. Our pleasure to contribute to technical and economic progress with our collective forward-looking know-how. In short, mindfulness is an asset – an asset SYNAPTICON connects worlds with as well.
Leading innovators worldwide choose Synapticon
