South Korea’s largest mobile messaging service company Kakao Corp.’s investment subsidiary Kakao Investment Corp. and its artificial intelligence (AI) unit Kakao Brain invested 4 billion won ($3.5 million) in Luxrobo Co., a robotics hardware platform provider founded by a robot-building genius.

Luxrobo is a tech startup specializing in manufacturing modular robot platform equipped with micro operating system (OS). Its modular electronic devices MODI allows users to create their own IoT or robotics devices by coding different modules including light-emitting diode (LED), speaker, infrared sensor, microphone, motor and gravity sensor. MODI has been widely used for coding education in the global market including the U.K. and Dubai. The company aims to market the product to 30 countries within this year.

Luxrobo Chief Executive Officer Oh Sang-hoon in mid-20s said that the collaboration with Kakao would help it to make great strides in robotics and IoT technologies. Kakao Investment CEO Park Ji-hwan said they would expand their cooperation in various sectors to enhance competitiveness of Luxrobo that has been recognized worldwide for the high performing and easy-to-use module devices and holds its own OS applicable to many devices.

Kakao plans to expand its investments in promising tech startups at home and abroad through its subsidiaries including Kcube Ventures, Kakao Investment and Kakao Brain.

By Cho Hee-young

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