Daedong Robotics, the artificial intelligence (AI) robotics affiliate of Daedong Group, has raised a total of 5 billion won in Series A funding, the company said Thursday.
The investment drew participation from Explo Investment, the corporate venture capital (CVC) arm of GS E&C, along with POSCO Technology Investment, an affiliate of POSCO Holdings, and NAU IB Capital (NAU IB). With this funding, Daedong Robotics plans to expand its AI field robot technology beyond agriculture into industrial sites such as construction and manufacturing.
The funds will be used to advance AI field robot technology, mass-produce new robots, and expand field demonstrations at industrial sites. Based on autonomous driving, spatial recognition, and control technologies proven in agricultural fields, Daedong Robotics plans to expand its agricultural robot lineup, including mowing and pest control, while broadening its scope of application to non-standard industrial sites such as construction, manufacturing, and logistics.
Daedong Robotics has secured technologies specialized for non-standard work environments, including combined indoor and outdoor autonomous driving, vision AI-based recognition of unstructured environments, and off-road driving platforms. Based on autonomous driving technology and data accumulated in agricultural fields, the company is also building a robot platform that can be extended to various industrial sectors such as construction, manufacturing, and logistics. In addition, it laid the foundation for commercialization by becoming the first in Korea to obtain certification for an agricultural autonomous transport robot.
Over the medium to long term, the company plans to advance beyond robot sales into a robot-as-a-service (RaaS) platform business utilizing autonomous driving, control, and operational data. The plan is to generate continuous service revenue based on data accumulated in the field and to grow into an AI field robot platform company.
"With AI field robots based on an off-road autonomous driving platform proven in real-world environments, we will contribute to creating safer working conditions by replacing dangerous and repetitive tasks in agriculture, construction, and manufacturing sites," said Kang Sung-chul, CEO of Daedong Robotics. "We will further accelerate robot commercialization based on Daedong Group's full-stack capabilities, spanning physical AI, robot hardware design, development, demonstration, manufacturing, and mass production."
