Autonomous Driving robot platform corporations Newbility has raised a Series B investment worth 25.1 billion won. Newbility plans to use the funds raised this time to expand its business beyond existing Autonomous Driving delivery and patrol robots into physical artificial intelligence (AI), including humanoids.
According to the industry on the 10th, Newbility recently closed an investment round worth 25.1 billion won. The cumulative investment has grown to 55 billion won. Newbility was valued at about 87 billion won at the time of its Series A investment, and this time its valuation is said to have risen to more than 200 billion won.
The investment drew institutional investors including Korea Development Bank and Envisioning Partners, as well as strategic investors (SI) such as former ZINUS chairman and founder Lee Yoon-jae and global mobile game corporations Easybrain CEO Peter Skoromnyi.
Founded in 2017, Newbility is the corporations that last year commercialized the nation's first urban Autonomous Driving delivery service.
Newbility's Autonomous Driving robot "Neubie" features Autonomous Driving technology that uses cameras instead of LiDAR sensors. By excluding high-priced LiDAR sensors and applying its self-developed multi-camera-based V-SLAM (visual SLAM, a technology that recognizes surroundings with cameras to build maps and locate itself), it reduced production costs to less than half of competitor robots.
Newbility is currently operating robots commercially at 142 sites at home and abroad. The total number in operation is about 370 units, the largest in Korea compared with competitors that typically operate dozens. It is also expanding its supply chain for delivery and patrol robots to overseas regions such as Japan and Saudi Arabia.
Government-level discussions on regulatory improvements are also underway. On Sep. 9, Minister Kim Jung-kwan of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy visited Newbility's headquarters to hear on-site difficulties. At the time, Kim said, "The key to the AI era is speed," and noted that the government would improve regulations by integrating and abolishing certification items unrelated to safety to shorten certification periods.
Based on the funds secured this time, Newbility is expected to expand the service area of its robot delivery service (RaaS) and speed up its entry into global markets such as North America. In addition, it will begin developing Humanoid Robot technologies that can assist human work, going beyond simple mobile robots. The strategy is to reshape itself as a physical AI corporations that applies software-centric AI to real-world hardware.