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Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics

748 points · 248 comments · 5 years ago · tazlor

therobotreport.com

postingpals5 years ago
Crunchyroll acquired by Sony, BD acquired by Hyundai, Slack acquired by Salesforce...
Our economic system seems to have a natural tendency towards monopoly. This is happening before our eyes and we don't even realise it.
karmicthreat5 years ago
I wonder if this is because of the SoftBank cash crunch. Or if it's just nobody has figured out how to make money with Boston Dynamics. Though if the 1 billion sale price is true, maybe flipping BD is the only way to make money with it.
zxcvbn40385 years ago
This should be very interesting, I'm not clear on the relationships after their split but Hyundai has a huge reach across every sort of heavy industry you can think of. I found another article that says it is the motor division that is acquiring Boston Dynamics. I'm surprised the US allowed this, Boston Dynamics seems like the sort of company they would keep close to home.
https://www.kedglobal.com/newsView/ked202012080011
ajit_singh5 years ago
$1 billion!
I understand that the valuation of a company is also determined by its earning potential but did Boston Dynamics have that so much that it justified this crazy valuation.
From what I know it barely made any revenue while being in business for more than 25 years. It couldn't find a customer to produce any of its hyped robots at scale. It was clearly a loss-magnet entity for Softbank which is in a selling mode in the wake of Uber/Wework disaster.
In any other country valuation like this would have become the subject of enormous assessment because outside the US, $1 bn still means a lot of money. But I think USA is beyond but I really do not understand the system which facilitates such transaction without the corresponding exchange in value. How is the money being made?
llboston5 years ago
I have been secretly hoping Tesla to buy Boston Dynamics and revolutionize autonomous manufacturing. One day, a Starship fleet will send an army of robots to Mars and build out a city.
cjmaria5 years ago
Seems like this fits in well with Hyundai's autonomous car project Motional, which is also based in Boston.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/11/21362322/hyundai-aptiv-mo...
syntaxing5 years ago
Not bad for a company they reportedly bought for 100M and pumped about another 400M over these three years. But all these ownership changes really show how hard it is to find the product and market fit for complex robotics.
freeflight5 years ago
> In April 2019, Boston Dynamics acquired Kinema Systems, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based startup that uses vision sensors and deep learning to help robots manipulate boxes. Kinema’s Pick system was rebranded as the Boston Dynamics Pick System. It was the company’s first commercialized product.
Interesting, I thought Spot was the first commercial product BD sold. But the Pick System seems like it would be much more viable for commercial application and adaption.
Particularly when combined with Hyundai's experience and presence in manufacturing, construction, healthcare [0] and even logistics [1] automation.
[0] https://control.com/news/a-look-into-hyundai-robotics-latest...
[1] https://www.supplychaindigital.com/technology/hyundai-improv...
karmasimida5 years ago
Boston Dynamics is such a hyped company, yet it constantly gets shoveled from one mega corp to another...Does it mean none of those companies see a profitable future with it?
williamtwild5 years ago
I wonder how this will factor into the military contracts that Boston Dynamics has/will have.
Animats5 years ago
Wow. That's a good exit.
Hyundai builds real things in quantity. This could work out.
cptskippy5 years ago
It's shame it's Hyundai Motor Company and not Hyundai Construction Equipment.
valuearb5 years ago
Cutting edge high tech company goes to die under ownership of massive conglomerate.
It’s an old but consistent story.
aussiegreenie5 years ago
This just demonstrates the "price gap" between virtual and "real world" companies. An app with a few thousand uses with worth more than one of the world's best engineering companies.
Even if either has a path to profitability.
christmm5 years ago
What happened to those 5 robotics companies Google acquired in 2014?
dhruvarora0135 years ago
Could someone explain why this acquisition makes sense? The core competencies between the two companies seem to have little overlap from my outsider perspective. Is this diversification or does Hyundai make more than automobiles?
blackrock5 years ago
Perhaps Boston Dynamics should make a robotic vacuum cleaner. One that’s more intelligent than the Roomba.
Or even a lawnmower.
This can become their cash cow, that they use to fund the R&D into their serious industrial robots.
thefourthchime5 years ago
Didn't Google buy and then sell them already?
abhisuri975 years ago
Hyundai Cars + Boston Dynamics Robots = Transformers?
totorovirus5 years ago
I thought they were related to U.S army funded projects which were highly confidential to foreigners.. I think they split the company into sensitive department and public department and hyundai is buying the public one.
osdotsystem5 years ago
A partnership might have been more valuable! It still intrigues me how it's not the other way round! Anime effect!
cpach5 years ago
Sounds like a quite low valuation...?
dukeofdoom5 years ago
Any benefit to cars having legs. Sideway parking?
dancemethis5 years ago
What does Hyundai want with an erectile disfunction clinic?
dec0dedab0de5 years ago
Anyone else hoping for rideable robot horses?
nikolay5 years ago
Really?! Only $1B for a real company with unique and futuristic products? When I look at the valuations of some Internet companies - it is sad!
rakkhi5 years ago
In Korea the dog eats you...
Slightly racist but lighten up its funny
sys_647385 years ago
I would never buy a Hyundai motor. Not sure how I’d feel about buying their robots.

news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25363981