Urobotics closes ₩40 billion Series A for robot walking software, two months after VCs flagged zero revenue

Urobotics, a KAIST spinout that builds the software robots use to walk across rough ground, has raised about ₩40 billion in a Series A co-led by Kiwoom Investment and K2 Investment Partners, Edaily reported on Nov. 4. Hyundai Motor Group's ZER01NE joined, along with Seoul Investment Partners, Schmidt, Envestor, Aju IB Investment, TS Investment, Kingo Investment Partners, Ulmus Investment and Novosek Investment.

The round reached the ₩40 billion ceiling it was pitched at in September, and the bet behind it is that robots will split like PCs: one company builds the body, another the software that moves it. Urobotics makes no robots. Its modular E-DONG-KIT adds autonomous mobility and whole-body control to humanoids and quadrupeds regardless of who made them. In September, Dealsite reported that the company had opened at a ₩200 billion pre-money valuation, come down to about ₩150 billion after some investors balked at the price, and had no revenue or commercial contracts. Now Urobotics says it has signed customers and earned revenue in autonomous inspection at construction and energy sites, and plans to sell into shipbuilding, steel and defense reconnaissance next. It puts the new valuation at more than ten times its seed round's, without giving a figure.

The case for paying up came from a VC who looked at the deal, quoted by Dealsite: "If Chinese companies sell robots in volume and a Korean company takes the core software inside them, even ₩200 billion is cheap."