Park Jong-hoon, CEO of Neuromeka, "Robot Industry Growth is the Key to IPO Success... Expecting Profit Turnaround Next Year"

[Asia Economy Reporter So-yeon Park] Neuromeka, a company that develops collaborative robot automation solutions, was listed on the KOSDAQ market on the 4th. Last month, Neuromeka conducted a public offering subscription for general investors at an offering price of 16,900 KRW, attracting subscription deposits worth 37 trillion KRW and achieving a final competition rate of 1,181.8 to 1. This is an unusual success in the sluggish IPO market. As of 9:30 a.m. on the same day, Neuromeka’s stock was trading at 23,950 KRW, up 7,050 KRW (41.7%) from the offering price.

Jong-hoon Park, CEO of Neuromeka, said in an interview with Asia Economy, "Although the IPO market situation is not favorable, expectations for the robotics industry are very high." He added, "Compared to other robotics companies in the same industry, Neuromeka’s prices are relatively low, but since we have maintained steady growth every year, investors seem to have highly valued these aspects."

CEO Park is an expert in robotics who earned his bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in mechanical engineering from POSTECH. He worked at the Pohang Intelligent Robot Research Institute and Wonik Robotics before founding the company in 2013.

Neuromeka specializes in manufacturing and producing collaborative robots. Collaborative robots are robots that work in the same space as humans and physically interact with them. They are considered essential products for small and medium-sized manufacturing companies with multi-product variable production systems to automate their processes.

CEO Park explained, "Our company’s biggest feature is focusing on providing robot solutions from the perspective of RaaS (Robot as a Service), which utilizes robots as a service. We dispatch Neuromeka’s collaborative robot experts to each client’s site to solve problems that arise and assist in building automation systems."

Neuromeka’s representative robot product is 'Indy.' It is Korea’s first sensorless collaborative robot, equipped with neural network-based collision detection and object recognition functions. Other products include the autonomous mobile robot 'Mobi,' the high-speed logistics automation robot 'D,' and the collaborative industrial robot 'Icon.' Neuromeka holds advanced competitiveness in robot control as well as safety and teaching technologies.

Neuromeka’s sales revenue last year was 7.3 billion KRW, with robots and automation solutions each accounting for about half. CEO Park said, "We succeeded in turning a profit in the second half of this year and expect to achieve an annual profit turnaround next year." Neuromeka’s sales have grown by 60% annually over the past 10 years. Park stated, "The overall average growth rate of the collaborative robot industry is 45%, but our company’s growth rate is slightly higher. We expect similar growth speed for the next 10 years as in the past decade."

Recently, Neuromeka has been expanding its business beyond small and medium enterprises to mass production processes in large corporations and medical research fields. It is also working on building automation solutions together with food and beverage companies. Overseas, it plans to expand its share in high value-added areas such as wastewater analysis and sample blending for major chemical companies. Neuromeka’s technological capabilities are receiving significant attention abroad. Gartner, a global market research firm, selected Neuromeka as a 'Smart Robotics Technology Innovation Company' in its emerging technology report.