In its tenure at SoftBank, Boston Dynamics has clearly been shifting towards commercialization. It acquired vision sensing and deep learning startup Kinema to help develop new products, and earlier this year, Spot became available for purchase. At just shy of $75,000, the agile robot is clearly more of an enterprise purchase, but it’s moving into consumer-facing roles, from helping hospital workers to barking out social distancing guidelines.
Coming to a fire hydrant near you — The prospect of commercial applications has ratcheted up the company’s worth nearly tenfold in just a few years (it’s an even more exciting deal in Korean currency at $1 trillion won). While you probably just think about cars when you think about Hyundai, the company is betting big on the future. Hyundai’s Chairman Chung Euisun is positioning future automotive business at only half of the company’s focus with robotics taking up 20 percent and urban air mobility rounding out the plan.
When Bloomberg originally reported on talks between SoftBank and Hyundai, it noted Boston Dynamics still isn't profitable. Its focus on research and development is great at churning out viral videos to haunt our dreams, but only time will tell whether we'll embrace Spot in real life.