BOSTON DYNAMICS IS FINALLY ACQUIRED BY HYUNDAI MOTOR GROUP FROM SOFTBANK. BOSTON/SEOUL/TOKYO, JUNE 21, 2021 – SoftBank Group Corp., Boston Dynamics, Inc., and Hyundai Motor Group (the Group)
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Boston Dynamics muses on the future as it is once again ingested by a massive corporation.
Formerly owned by the parent company of Google, Alphabet, and subsequently by the Japanese corporation SoftBank, Boston Dynamics is currently a part of the Hyundai Motor Company of South Korea.
Boston Dynamics issued a press release this morning shortly after 3 a.m. ET to indicate that Hyundai Motor Group has purchased a majority stake in the business, valuing Boston Dynamics at US $1.1 billion:
According to the agreement, after the transaction is completed, Hyundai Motor Group will own approximately 80% of Boston Dynamics, while SoftBank, through one of its affiliates, would possess approximately 20% of the company.
Although the statement is lengthy, there are several fascinating passages that we’ll go over and discuss what it might mean for Hyundai and Boston Dynamics.
Boston Dynamics has been particularly quiet lately (I wonder why! ), despite our requests for a statement from them. Just remember that at this point, the only items we can say with certainty are those contained in the release. We’ll update this piece if (when?) we hear back from Hyundai or Boston Dynamics.
First and foremost, it should be made clear that the acquisition is divided among the affiliates of the Hyundai Motor Group, including Hyundai Motor, Hyundai Mobis, and Hyundai Glovis. Hyundai Motor produces automobiles, Hyundai Mobis produces automobile components and appears to be working on some autonomous projects, and Hyundai Glovis performs logistics. There are other more organizations that go by the name Hyundai, but they are all separate, at least on paper. For instance, Hyundai Robotics is a division of Hyundai Heavy Industries, which is unrelated to Hyundai Motor Group. However, in this piece, when we refer to “Hyundai,” we mean Hyundai Motor Group.
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Boston Dynamics was officially acquired by Hyundai Motor Group on Tuesday, according to a statement. Boston Dynamics received a $1.1 billion valuation from the acquisition, which was announced in December. With the acquisition, Hyundai gains an 80 percent controlling position in the business, while the former owner, Softbank, keeps a 20 percent stake.
The agreement should provide Boston Dynamics a secure home, as the company has produced the most remarkable robots in the world despite frequent ownership changes. The corporation was separated from MIT in 1992 and relied heavily on DARPA research grants for the majority of its existence. In 2013, as part of a transient interest in robotics spearheaded by Andy Rubin, co-founder of Android, Google purchased the independent Boston Dynamics. The company was no longer dependent on military contracts thanks to Google, but when Rubin left the company a year later, his interest in robots went with him.
Hyundai completes the acquisition of a majority stake in Boston Dynamics.
This morning, Hyundai said that the purchase of Boston Dynamics was complete. The revolutionary robotics business is valued at $1.1 billion thanks to the deal, which was disclosed in late 2020. Future financial information has not been made public by the companies.
Boston Dynamics, which was formerly owned by SoftBank, is now under the ownership of the South Korean automotive behemoth. Boston Dynamics was acquired by the Japanese investment firm from Google, which had held the company for less than three years, and served as the company’s de facto interim owner.
Boston Dynamics saw the commercialization of its first two products since launching around 30 years ago, even though its time with Softbank wasn’t much longer than its period under Google/Alphabet X. This year, the business announced the (still impending) release of Stretch, an improved version of its warehouse robot, Handle. Last year, the company brought its quadruped robot Spot to market.
Boston Dynamics has insisted on keeping its own research division despite changing ownership over the years, which has resulted in less commercial technology like the Atlas humanoid robot. It is unclear how this will operate under the leadership of Hyundai, but the business does appear to have a stake in continuing a forward-thinking strategy.
When the partnership was announced, Boston Dynamics CEO Rob Playter said, “We and Hyundai share a view of the transformational power of mobility and look forward to working together to accelerate our plans to enable the world with cutting-edge automation, and to continue to solve the world’s hardest robotics challenges for our customers.”
Hyundai purchases Spot the robotic dog manufacturer Boston Dynamics.
With the announcement that it has acquired a majority stake in Boston Dynamics from the Japanese technology company Softbank, Hyundai Motor Group has made a significant foray into the world of mobile robotics. Boston Dynamics, best known for its consistently amazing robotic dog named Spot, will now collaborate with the automaker on technologies that improve human mobility.
Spot is without a doubt the star of the show among Boston Dynamics’ stable of agile machines, having first gone on sale in June of last year. We’ve witnessed it at work tending to sheep in New Zealand, monitoring COVID-19 patients’ vital signs, and surveying building sites, to name just a few of its duties.
Boston Dynamics, though, is a multifaceted company. It has also created a humanoid robot that can flip over named Atlas, a wheeled robot that can leap called Handle, and an upgraded version of Handle called Stretch that is designed for warehouse work and is anticipated to hit the market next year.
All of this appears to have drawn the attention of the Hyundai Motor Group, which is said to have started negotiations with robot-maker owner Softbank last year to purchase the company. With Hyundai now holding an 80% controlling ownership and Softbank holding the remaining 20%, the purchase has officially reached official status and values Boston Dynamics at US$1.1 billion.
Along with its other investments in robotics, AI, driverless vehicles, and urban aviation, Hyundai considers this as another stage in its transformation into a “Smart Mobility Solution Provider.” Together, the two will develop robots for a variety of tasks, including manufacturing and logistics, and they’ll also keep adding mobile machines to Boston Dynamic’s roster.
In a $1.1 billion deal, Hyundai purchases Boston Dynamics from SoftBank.
In a deal valued at $1.1 billion, the world’s largest automaker, Hyundai Motor Group, has agreed to acquire control of Boston Dynamics from SoftBank Group.
Hyundai will own 80% of the company, according to a statement from Boston Dynamics, and SoftBank will own the other 20%. Chairman Euisun Chung, one of the wealthiest individuals in Korea with a net worth of $3.5 billion, is in charge of Hyundai.
The agreement would “lend synergies” to autonomous vehicles, according to the release, and will take advantage of Boston Dynamics and Hyundai’s respective capabilities in manufacturing, logistics, and automation. Aiming to become a “Smart Mobility Solution Provider,” a wide goal that includes autonomous cars, Hyundai, the second-largest business in Korea after Samsung, has ambitious plans to invest more than $50 billion over the next five years.
According to Boston Dynamics, Hyundai has already made significant investments in the creation of cutting-edge technology, such as autonomous driving, smart manufacturing, artificial intelligence, robotics, and environmentally friendly automobiles. Hyundai and the major European chemical company Ineos only last month agreed to study the possibility of collaborating on the development of hydrogen technology for the automaker’s hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles.
According to Yu Yuansheng, a senior analyst at Lux Research based in Singapore, “the acquisition of Boston Dynamics would bring in-house some of the market-leading capabilities, technologies, and know-how, and provide a big boost for Hyundai’s goals.” Yu cites Hyundai’s Vest EXoskeleton, a wearable robot it launched last year to help manufacturing employees. In order to assist persons with disabilities in walking, Hyundai is currently developing medical robots.
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21st of June 2021, BOSTON, SEOUL, South Korea, and TOKYO /PRNewswire — Following the receipt of regulatory clearances and other customary closing conditions, the Hyundai Motor Group (the Group), Boston Dynamics, Inc., and SoftBank Group Corp. (SoftBank) today announced the completion of the Group’s acquisition of a controlling interest in Boston Dynamics from SoftBank. The transaction gave the mobile robot company a $1.1 billion market value. No additional financial information was provided.
Following the closure, the Group will own 80% of Boston Dynamics, while SoftBank will keep the remaining 20% of the company through one of its affiliates.
Many of the top industrial companies in the world have successfully incorporated the nimble, mobile robots developed by Boston Dynamics into their commercial processes. Modern robotics has chances for quick development and the ability to improve society by making work safer and more efficient.
With the acquisition of Boston Dynamics, the Group takes yet another significant step toward its strategic transformation into a Smart Mobility Solution Provider and secures a dominant foothold in the robotics industry. The Group has made significant investments in the development of future technologies, including as autonomous driving, artificial intelligence (AI), urban air mobility (UAM), smart manufacturing, and robotics, in order to accelerate this change.
The Group’s goal in the robotics sector is to create cutting-edge technologies that improve people’s lives, foster safety, and realize development for humanity.
Boston Dynamics and the Group should be able to take advantage of each other’s strengths in manufacturing, logistics, construction, and automation thanks to the agreement. The Group and Boston Dynamics will work together to develop a robotics value chain, from the production of robot components to intelligent logistics solutions. The Group will also assist Boston Dynamics with its ongoing global sales and service expansion and product portfolio development.
In June 2020, Boston Dynamics began selling Spot(r), its first commercial robot. Today, the company has hundreds of robots working in a range of sectors, including mining, manufacturing, oil and gas, power utilities, and construction. The business has recently debuted StretchTM, its first commercial robot specifically intended for warehousing operations and distribution hubs.
The Group also unveiled a new film today to demonstrate how it will use Boston Dynamics’ expertise to promote mobility for humanity. You may see the video on Hyundai’s YouTube channel.
How come Hyundai purchased Boston Dynamics?
The acquisition of Boston Dynamics by Hyundai Motor Group was motivated by the company’s potential for growth and broad range of skills.
We comprehend “wide variety of skills,” but the other word, “growing potential,” has a lot going on. As far as we know, Boston Dynamics is currently not even close to being profitable. For between $100 and $200 million, SoftBank purchased Boston Dynamics in 2017, and over the following three years, they continued to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the company.
With Hyundai holding an 80 percent ownership, Boston Dynamics will simply need to take over the majority of that support and, if expansion is one of their top priorities, even boost it. Boston Dynamics is currently selling Spots, but it’s unclear whether the product will be able to find a scalable market niche where it will be useful in the kind of volume that will make it a long-term commercial success. Hyundai cannot have a reasonable expectation that Boston Dynamics will become profitable any time soon. Even if Spot succeeds, it doesn’t appear that it will be able to significantly reduce Boston Dynamics’ burn rate any time soon on its own. Of course, Boston Dynamics will release new goods, but it will take some time, and in the meantime, Hyundai will need to provide support.
It may be challenging for Boston Dynamics to defend the expense of developing the robot depending on whether Hyundai sees the firm as one that does research or one that creates practical and commercial robots.
It has become evident that Boston Dynamics requires a benefactor with very large funds and a lengthy time horizon in order to continue itself. Boston Dynamics’ business model—or whatever you want to call it—was initially to carry out custom projects for organizations with ties to the defense industry, such as DARPA. However, from what we understand, Boston Dynamics stopped doing that kind of work after Google acquired them in 2013. According to one point of view, the government funding accomplished exactly what it set out to do by supporting the development of legged robots at low TRLs (technology readiness levels) until they were ready to begin considering commercialization.
Now the question is whether Hyundai will allow Boston Dynamics to embark on the same low-TRL, high-risk initiatives that led to BigDog, LS3, Spot, and PETMAN, as well as DRC Atlas, which led to the current Atlas. Will Hyundai be unfazed by the situation and act as the kind of generous donor who would be prepared to provide Boston Dynamics with the funding they require to continue doing what they are doing without posing any uncomfortable questions about issues like viability and profitability? The question is whether Hyundai will wish to over the period of time needed for the development of the kind of ultra-sophisticated robots gear in which Boston Dynamics specializes. Hyundai can afford to accomplish this, but so could SoftBank and Google.
To put it another way, it may be challenging for Boston Dynamics to justify the cost to develop the next Atlas when the current one still seems so far from commercialization, depending on whether Hyundai views Boston Dynamics as a company that conducts research or a company that makes robots that are useful and profitable.