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South Korean billionaire Jay Y. Lee’s Samsung Electronics plans to acquire an additional stake in Kosdaq-listed Rainbow Robotics for more than 267 billion won (about $180 million) to become its largest shareholder, the tech conglomerate’s latest step to strengthen its foothold in the growing AI-powered humanoid robot space.
Rainbow Robotics, based in Daejeon, south of Seoul, said in a regulatory filing Tuesday that Samsung Electronics will raise its stake in the company to 35% from 14.7%. The deal is expected to close on February 17 following government approval. Samsung Electronics first bought into Rainbow Robotics in January 2023, acquiring a 10.22% stake for some 59 billion won.
The current largest shareholder is 70-year-old Oh Jun-ho, one of the cofounders of Rainbow Robotics, with a 17.37% stake. If the deal goes ahead as planned, then Oh’s stake will be reduced to 7.78%. Oh’s wife Yoon Hye-sun and their children Oh Soo-jung and Oh Soo-hyung, whose English name is Erick, also own stakes in the 3.16 trillion won market cap company.
After the deal is completed, Rainbow Robotics will become a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics, and its financial results will be consolidated into Samsung Electronics’ earnings, according to a statement by the tech conglomerate.
“By combining Samsung Electronics’ AI and software technology with Rainbow Robotics’ robotics technology, the collaboration plans to accelerate the development of intelligent advanced humanoids,” Samsung Electronics said in its statement.
“With the collaboration, Samsung plans to utilize Rainbow Robotics’ collaborative robots, dual-arm mobile manipulator, and autonomous mobile robots for manufacturing and logistics automation tasks,” Samsung Electronics added in its statement. “These robots can greatly improve their work capabilities by learning and analyzing situational data and environmental variables that occur in the field through AI algorithms.”
Rainbow Robotics was founded in 2011 by a team from the Humanoid Robot Research Center at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea’s leading science and technology university. The team developed South Korea’s first two-legged walking robot, called Hubo, in 2005.
Other major conglomerates in South Korea have been growing their robotics businesses. Billionaire Euisun Chung’s Hyundai Motor bought a controlling stake in Boston Dynamics from SoftBank Group in 2009, valuing the maker of dog-like robots at around $1.1 billion. More recently, in October, Boston Dynamics announced a partnership with Toyota Research Institute to develop AI-powered humanoid robots.
South Korea’s oldest conglomerate, the 128-year-old Doosan Group, listed its collaborative robots unit Doosan Robotics last year. Doosan Robotics, South Korea’s largest manufacturer of robot arms by sales, raised $312 million in what was the country’s largest IPO that year.
