
LG Electronics Inc. has secured control of Bear Robotics Inc., a service robot developer, by raising its stake to 51% from 21%, aiming to expand its robotics business across commercial, industrial and home services.
The South Korean home appliances maker on Wednesday agreed at a board meeting to buy an additional 30% stake in the autonomous driving robot developer through a call option attached to its $60 million investment in the startup last year.
Its investment size for the additional stake purchase was not disclosed.
Founded in 2017, Bear Robotics produces serving robots: Servi that delivers meals at restaurants and Carti for use at warehouses.
It also has developed autonomous robotics software, in addition to robot fleet management and cloud-based content solutions.
“As the paradigm in the robotics industry shift towards software, LG Electronics has gained momentum to enhance its robotics software capabilities,” said an official of the company.
“LG’s manufacturing capabilities and supply chain management expertise will improve the competitiveness (of Bear Robotics),” he added.
LG will combine its robotics business focused on the serving robot CLOi with that of Bear Robotics.
Its taking control of Bear Robotics came about one month after Samsung Electronics Co. boosted its stake in Rainbow Robotics Co. to 35% to become the largest shareholder in the South Korean collaborative robot maker.
By Jeong-Soo Hwang
hjs@hankyung.com
Yeonhee Kim edited this article.