Founded in 2023, Robus is drawing attention as an innovative corporations that provides transaction and management solutions for intellectual property (IP) of agricultural varieties. Robus' core competitiveness is a data-driven system that recommends optimal agricultural varieties by considering various conditions such as climate change, soil, and nutrients. This system reduces the uncertainty of seed selection for farmers and helps enhance the sustainability of agriculture.
Park Chang-jun, head of Robus, said, "As uncertainty in agriculture grows, the service we provide is a solution that recommends the most suitable varieties for farmers," emphasizing the importance of data-driven variety recommendations.
Robus is building a stable revenue model not only through transaction of variety IP but also with a software as a service (SaaS) model. Park said, "Through the SaaS model, we support seed corporations so they can efficiently develop and manage variety IP," adding, "Through this, we are securing stable sales with a structure that generates both royalty fees and SaaS revenue at the same time."
Robus is currently handling about 300 types of variety IP and is expanding its business in the global market based on this.
Robus is focusing on overseas expansion centered on the United States and Mexico. In particular, in the U.S. market, it is actively localizing and selling Korean aromatic rice varieties.
Park said, "Demand for Korean rice is increasing in the U.S. market, and interest in Korean varieties is growing due to the popularity of K-food," adding, "Our goal is to replace the rice used in Korean foods such as bibimbap, sotbap, and kimbap with our varieties." Robus has completed local registration of variety IP and plans to start pilot cultivation from Apr. next year.
Robus is moving away from traditional agricultural variety development methods and introducing AI-based digital breeding. By using AI, it can increase the efficiency of the variety crossbreeding process and quickly conduct thousands of crossbreeding tests.
Park said, "Digital breeding is a technology that can dramatically reduce the time and expense of developing agricultural varieties through AI," adding, "It can improve the quality of agricultural varieties and precisely develop the varieties consumers want." This technology is expected to play an important role particularly in enabling seed corporations to develop and manage varieties based on data.
Robus is currently building a variety IP portfolio. Park said, "Our goal is not simply to conduct transaction of agricultural varieties, but to secure competitiveness in the global market through efficient management and development based on AI and data." To that end, Robus plans to adapt quickly to the market through technology differentiated from existing agricultural IP corporations and accelerate global expansion.
Robus is expected to record more than 10 billion won in sales this year and plans to expand its business with a target of 25 billion won next year. Park said, "Existing agricultural IP corporations mostly manage data manually, but Robus manages seeds based on data and increases the efficiency of variety development through AI technology," adding, "With the digitalization and globalization of agriculture, we will accelerate the overseas expansion of K-food and Korean varieties."