The BENTELER Group has inked an agreement so as to acquire ioki GmbH from Deutsche Bahn AG.
Following the acquisition, ioki is going to operate with HOLON as well as Benteler Mobility within the BENTELER Group. All three businesses are going to combine the gamut of vehicle manufacturing and software platforms along with operational services when it comes to autonomous mobility.
HOLON goes on to manufacture the HOLON Urban autonomous shuttle, while ioki offers its software for on-demand services as well as public transport integration, and Benteler Mobility, on the other hand, provides fleet operations along with financing.
As per the companies, the combined offering is intended to enable the cities and public transport authorities, along with mobility providers, to source vehicles, software, and also operations from one group. The data analysis and simulation tools of ioki are used to evaluate where the autonomous vehicles could go ahead and complement the present public transport networks. Both the software platform and the vehicle systems are crafted to be scalable and, at the same time, interoperable too, with the objective of simplifying rollout for the operators.
The chief executive of BENTELER Group, Ralf Göttel, said that the acquisition goes on to bring together the manufacturing expertise of HOLON and the operational capabilities of Benteler Mobility with the digital platform solutions from ioki, such as the hardware, services as well as software – all in one place. This kind of an integrated approach is quite distinct in their industry. It radically goes on to simplify the deployment and also operation of autonomous vehicles when it comes to customers. In addition to their core business when it comes to metal processing, BENTELER is, in a way, strategically evolving into being a leading provider as far as the autonomous mobility sector is concerned.
Under the BENTELER ownership, ioki is anticipated to go beyond its present European focus. The driver-based ride-pooling software of the company is going to continue to be developed and offered, thereby supporting mixed fleets, which go on to include both conventional and autonomous vehicles. When it comes to autonomous projects, ioki is going to remain vehicle- and system-agnostic, enabling customers to go ahead and integrate HOLON shuttles or vehicles from certain other manufacturers.
The co-founder and chief executive of ioki, Michael Barillère-Scholz, said that being part of the BENTELER Group, they can further go on to strengthen and also scale the market leadership of their successfully established software along with analytics products on a global level. Their mission is to connect people in an intelligent way. Their expertise in data-driven mobility, mixed with a very deep public-transport know-how along with global reach, helps to possess sustainable and connected mobility. Together along with HOLON and Benteler Mobility, they indeed have quite strong partners at their side who are going to support their further development, especially in the long term.
HOLON and ioki, along with Benteler Mobility, are already working together on certain initial projects that are intended to inform the development of a much more integrated offering. Commenting jointly, the chief sales officer of HOLON, Sven Herzig, and the chief executive of Benteler Mobility, Tobias Liebelt, said that the companies go on to share an objective of supporting the cities and operators when it comes to introducing autonomous mobility in a practical and also an economically viable way.
