South Korean sports drone business was able to attract international investments as one of China’s top 3 funds has decided to invest in Drogen. By attracting investments from South Korea and China, Drogen will prepare for future plans that are worth over $4.05 million (5 billion KRW) and is expecting expansion of its business and increased production of its current products.
Drogen (CEO Lee Heung-shin) made an announcement on the 21st that it was able to attract $4.05 million from IDG Capital Partners, which is one of China’s top 3 venture capitals.
Investment will be finalized by end of March after going through examination period. During this period, variety of invest method methods such as equity investment that is worth about 10%, convertible bond (CB) and others will be examined. IDG recently submitted LOI (Letter of Intent) that is based on such information to Drogen.
South Korea’s venture capital will also buy Drogen’s shares. IB Venture Partners has decided to buy 5,000 shares. It submitted its LOI to buy Drogen’s shares early this month and will finish up document process and investment examination by end of this month. Dealing price and price of shares will be discussed during examination period.
Shares that IB Venture Partners is buying are shares that Drogen obtained in the past from its mass-production partner called ESV. Drogen liquidated shares from ESV after liquidating its partnership with ESV in mass-production and sales early this year.
It seems that increased production for Drogen’s products will take place due to continuous attraction of investments. Drogen is currently selling its sports drone called ‘LOBIT’ in domestic and international markets and had made contracts with Japan’s Eisan and China’s international freight agent limited liability company called Kaoken regarding exportation of LOBIT. As sizes of domestic and international markets increase, Drogen’s task is to increase output of its products.
Lineup of product this year will also be diverse. LOBIT series are made up of ‘LOBIT 300GT’ and ‘LOBIT 320R’. Their acrobatic flying capabilities such as fast flying, consecutive turning in mid-air and others are excellent. Drogen is going to release a new product that will reduce size of airframe and price this year. Toy drone, which was co-developed by Chinese partnership, will be released next month.
Drogen is also going to open ‘Café Drogen’, which is a space for mixed drone culture, and push for ‘D-Sports’ cultural businesses by holding a competition with a prize of $81,021 (100 million KRW) and others.
Drogen is planning to use the money that it had earned from investments on increasing production of drones and also use the money to expand production facilities, to buy motor company, and to buy shares of sensor companies. These are measures that are taken to respond to order amount that has suddenly increased recently.
“Excluding amount that will be used to buy motor companies and to buy shares of sensor companies, rest of money will be used to expand production facilities.” said CEO Lee Heung-shin of Drogen. “Toy drone will be distributed in South Korea after a drone show that will take place in Japan in middle of next month.”
Staff Reporter Song, Junyoung | songjy@etnews.com