Philadelphia’s burgeoning robotics industry stands to score another economic win.
Ghost Robotics, a University of Pennsylvania company that has recently been attracting attention for the military use of its “robot dogs,” officially announced today that it has been acquired by a major South Korean defense company.
Aerospace manufacturer LIG Nex 1 acquired a 60% controlling stake in Ghost for $240 million, bringing the startup’s total valuation to $400 million. The megadeal isn’t expected to bring any dramatic changes to the Philadelphia-founded company, according to co-founder and CEO Gavin Kennealy.
“Ghost Robotics will be headquartered in Philadelphia,” Kennealy told Technical.ly. “Management will continue to run the business in their current roles.”
LIG Nex 1, a 50-year-old company that makes weapons systems for the South Korean military, filed for the acquisition in December last year.
“Ghost Robotics will continue to focus on engineering, research and development and close collaboration with our customers.” Gavin Kennelly Ghost
Kennealy and co-founders Avik De and the late Jiren Parikh founded Ghost Robotics in 2015. At the time, Kennealy and De were PhD students at the University of Pennsylvania working at the university’s GRASP lab (which stands for General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception).
The company is based out of the 60,000-square-foot Pennovation Works Center in Grays Ferry, where it employs about 30 people, all of whom plan to stay with the company, Kennealy said.
“LIG will leverage its high-tech manufacturing expertise to help scale production, while Ghost Robotics will focus on engineering, research and development and continue to work closely with customers,” he said.
Ghost Robotics is known for its quadrupedal unmanned ground vehicle known as the Q-UGV, colloquially known as the “robot dog.”
The company’s Vision 60 model can climb rough terrain and withstand harsh weather, and Ghost customers have used it for surveillance, intruder detection and to scout evacuation routes for earthquake victims.
404 Media reported last week that the Department of Homeland Security is testing modified V60s that can launch denial-of-service attacks to disable smart home and IoT “booby traps.”
become a target of activist protests
The acquisition of LIG Nex 1 coincides with growing protests against Ghost Robotics, which has targeted sales to government militaries, including Israel.
Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported in March that the Israel Defense Forces were “experimenting” with the use of robotic dogs in the Gaza Strip. The report said the Vision 60s were being used to monitor spaces such as buildings and tunnels. There has been no confirmation that the robotic dogs have been weaponized.
In response to these reports, a group called “Shut Down Ghost Robotics” was formed, and activists began organizing protests in April calling on the University of Pennsylvania to end its affiliation with the company.
Earlier this month, the home of a Ghos University executive was vandalized, with words like “murderer” painted on the door of a row house. The same week, glass panels and windows at Pennovation Works were smashed, but university officials said there was no evidence to suggest the incident was related.
There is also a pending lawsuit from fellow Q-UVG manufacturer Boston Dynamics suing Ghost for patent infringement, which Ghost claims is “baseless.” The lawsuit is still pending.
Ghost did not sign a pledge made by Boston Dynamics in November 2022 and signed by several other robotics companies not to weaponize their products.
The pledge says adding weapons to autonomous or remote-controlled robots raises ethical concerns. But the letter makes clear that the signatories have no problem with “existing technologies” the government uses for defense. Ghost, in turn, said it doesn’t tell government customers how to use or not use its robots.
None of these issues appear to have affected Ghost’s acquisition prospects, market success, or future plans.
“We look forward to the next chapter in our growth journey as we innovate and produce best-in-class legged robots to increase efficiencies and save lives,” Kennealy said.
Sarah Huffman is a 2022-2024 corps member for Report for America, a Ground Truth Project initiative that connects early career journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Company: Ghost Robotics
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