Taiwan-based manufacturing giant Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has invested in Japanese robotics start-up Telexistence Inc (TX) by participating in its latest round of fundraising, with plans to work with it to jointly produce the next-generation robot model: “Ghost.”
Telexistence said in a statement yesterday that it completed its Series B round of fundraising, securing US$170 million.
In addition to the lead investors in previous funding rounds, such as Monoful Venture Partners, KDDI Open Innovation Fund and Airbus Ventures, Telexitence said it has also secured financial support from HH-CTBC Partnership, Softbank Group (SBG) and Globis Capital Partners.
Photo: Ann wang, Reuters
HH-CTBC Partnership is also known as Foxconn Co-GP Fund, which was set up by Hon Hai and Taiwan’s CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控).
However, Telexistence, a developer of remote-controlled robotics, did not disclose other financial details about the latest funding round.
After obtaining funds from Hon Hai, Telexistence would initiate its collaboration with Hon Hai to establish a production technology to carry out commercial production for its next-generation robotics model, “Ghost,” the company said.
In addition, Telexistence entered into a strategic business partnership agreement with Softbank Robotic Group Corp, a subsidiary of Softbank Group, to promote their business collaboration globally, with a focus on accelerating commercialization in North America, it said.
“With the proud backing of our new partners SBG and Foxconn, TX increases its commitment to accelerate the rapid expansion of its existing robot operations and drive the development of robots with human-level versatility, which is the goal of anyone involved in robotics,” Telexistence CEO Jin Tomioka said in the statement.
“With this latest funding, we aim to amplify our search for top, diverse talent to enhance our global capabilities at scale,” Tomioka said.
Telexistence, which was established in 2017, in 2021 announced a partnership with FamilyMart, one of the three largest convenience store chains in Japan, where it deployed robots to 300 FamilyMart stores across the country.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
RSS