Humanoid Robot Company Robros Secures First Venture Funding

Service robot R&D company Robros has secured its first venture funding. Major investors joined from the seed round, and the company's strong team and robot development capabilities were cited as key reasons.

According to the venture capital industry on July 21, Robros recently raised 1.6 billion won. This is the company's first institutional investment. Stick Ventures and Primer Saje participated as financial investors, and GS Retail joined as a strategic investor.

Nam Changmo, an investment manager at Stick Ventures who led the round, said he decided quickly after seeing Robros' strong team and field-based R&D capabilities. He said robot engineers and commercialization experts are leading both development and market entry, and the company is expected to meet unmet needs starting in F&B and expanding to other fields.

The funding was also credited to Robros' research achievements and a business model aimed at global expansion. The team's diverse knowledge and hands-on experience were cited as strengths.

Robros is a service robot startup founded in 2020 by CEO Noh Seungjun, a UCLA graduate with startup experience in the United States.

CTO Park Hyunjoon, who earned a PhD in engineering at Seoul National University, has won more than 10 awards including the Presidential Prize at robot conferences and competitions, and has published as first author in IEEE TIE and RAL on robot control technology.

Chief Design Officer Kim Jinyoung earned a master's degree at the Royal College of Art in the UK, taught design at Kyung Hee University for 10 years, and has worked on projects with Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics.

Researchers from Seoul National University and Yonsei University, and a veteran service manager with more than 10 years of experience at Starbucks, have also joined the team.

Robros is developing safe service robots specialized for working in shared spaces with people, a field drawing growing attention. OpenAI has also shown interest by leading an investment in Norway-based service humanoid robot company 1X.

Robros aims to develop service robots that are safe and efficient enough to collaborate with people. Its proprietary proprioceptive compliance torque control technology can make robots move softly without explicit sensing.

The company plans to use this technology to develop safe service robots at low cost even in collisions. It also has global-level control technologies such as reinforcement learning based simulation and hand control for irregular objects.

Robros opened a pilot store to build a base for R&D and commercialization, and plans to accelerate future-oriented safe service robot technology. It will expand product lines beyond F&B into home care and medical services.

CEO Roh said the company has built technology and know-how to analyze service needs and develop robots for real-world use, and hopes Robros' service robots will provide better services than people and change the paradigm of service industries.