The vision company Basler has celebrated its 25th anniversary. Norbert Basler established the company in 1988, which is now a leading global manufacturer of industrial cameras, with annual revenues of €56 million.
Norbert Basler and a partner founded the company with a starting capital of 2,000 Deutsche Marks (approximately US$1,500). Basler began by developing image processing systems to test optical storage media, and was able to win large clients like Sony, Warner and PolyGram. Over time other product lines were added, including systems for inspecting gaskets and LCD glass.
Basler started developing its own cameras in 1996 launching models in 1998. This has evolved over the last 15 years into a successful business model. In light of the more favourable growth outlook for the camera business, Basler has phased out its systems offerings over the past five years, now exclusively producing cameras for use in industry, video surveillance, medical and traffic applications. That small start-up in 1998 has become a profitable and fast-growing company with a portfolio of international clients and over 350 employees.
Founder Norbert Basler serves as the chairman of the supervisory board, and as the majority shareholder, still plays a central role in the company.
Dr Dietmar Ley, CEO at Basler, commented: ‘Our technology plays an important role in daily life, even if its work generally goes unnoticed. Image processing is making our lives simpler and better right now, and will do so even more powerfully in the future as the technology continues to improve.’
Basler was one of the first companies to put modern CMOS image sensors onto the market, to integrate powerful and user-friendly interface technology such as Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire and USB 3.0 into industrial cameras, and to take a leading role in the establishment of image processing standards such as GenICam, GigE Vision and USB3.
