'AI Jeolchibushim' Son Jeong-ui Invests in Robot Startup

Participation in 223 Billion Investment Funding

Japanese SoftBank is participating in a 223 billion won investment funding round for the robot startup 'Teleexistence.' SoftBank Chairman Masayoshi Son made his first public appearance in seven months and expressed an aggressive commitment to investing in artificial intelligence (AI), marking the first investment since then.

Tokyo-based startup Teleexistence announced on the 6th (local time) through its website that it successfully raised Series B funding involving SoftBank and others. The investment amount is $170 million (approximately 223 billion won), with investors including SoftBank, Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry, CTBC Financial Holdings, and Glovis Capital Partners.

The funds secured this time will be used to expand into the North American market and recruit global talent, said Jin Tomioka, CEO of Teleexistence. Teleexistence developed the automated robotic arm 'Scara,' which can be used in retail stores. The company signed a supply contract with FamilyMart, Japan's largest convenience store chain, in 2021 and had deployed Scara in about 300 stores across Japan as of the end of last year. Scara is placed behind store shelves and automatically replenishes items that are running low.

Teleexistence's goal for this year is to expand its territory into the North American market. To expand its North American business, it has formed a strategic partnership with SoftBank Robotics, a SoftBank subsidiary, and is working with Hon Hai Precision Industry's Foxconn to produce the next-generation robot called 'Ghost.' The company is also collaborating with U.S. companies Microsoft (MS) and Nvidia in the fields of cloud and AI semiconductors.

SoftBank Chairman Masayoshi Son (Photo by Reuters)

Since the establishment of the Vision Fund, Chairman Son has made massive investments in robot technology but has not achieved significant results. The humanoid robot 'Pepper,' developed by subsidiary SoftBank Robotics and launched in 2015, was discontinued due to weak demand, and the robot startup Zoom, which received $375 million investment through the Vision Fund three years later, failed to gain market traction. Boston Dynamics, a robot development company acquired from Alphabet, Google's parent company, was eventually sold to Hyundai Motor Group in 2020.

This investment is drawing attention as a potential start of Chairman Son's recently announced 'aggressive investment in AI' at the shareholders' meeting. Chairman Son, who had been out of the public eye since November last year, broke his seven-month silence and appeared publicly on the 21st of last month. At the shareholders' meeting held in Tokyo, Japan, he stated, "Thanks to adopting a defensive stance over the past three years, we increased our cash holdings to 5 trillion yen," and announced that he would shift to an aggressive investment mode targeting the currently hottest AI market.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.