Hyundai Motor Group is set to take full ownership of Boston Dynamics, acquiring the remaining 9.65% stake held by Japan's SoftBank Group for $325 million, according to investment banking sources cited by KED Global. The deal closes out the put option SoftBank retained from the original 2021 transaction and makes the Waltham, Massachusetts robotics company a wholly owned Hyundai business for the first time.
A 24x valuation ride in five years
Hyundai paid roughly $880 million for 80% of Boston Dynamics in 2021, valuing the company at about $1.1 billion. Korean brokerage estimates now put its implied value above 30 trillion won (roughly $19-22 billion) — a nearly 24-fold increase, albeit speculative ahead of full commercialization. Board approvals across Hyundai Motor, Kia, Mobis and Glovis were expected ahead of a July 20 deadline tied to SoftBank's option.
Why full control matters now
The timing tracks Atlas's move out of the lab. A production version of the electric humanoid is expected to begin parts-sequencing work at Hyundai's EV Metaplant near Savannah, Georgia, by 2028, and the group plans to deploy roughly 25,000 Atlas units across its factories from that point. Full ownership removes the need to manage SoftBank as a co-investor and lets Hyundai align Boston Dynamics' roadmap directly with its manufacturing network — including Hyundai Mobis's role in Atlas actuator production. It also builds on the group's physical-AI alliance with NVIDIA announced in Seoul in June.
IPO subplot
Korean analysts read the buyout as a step that could accelerate a future Boston Dynamics IPO, potentially on Nasdaq — a listing that would also help Executive Chair Chung Euisun fund inheritance taxes and governance restructuring. Boston Dynamics CEO Robert Playter has said Atlas must learn new factory tasks within a day or two and hit 99.9% reliability before it is broadly useful on production floors, a bar the company has not yet publicly cleared despite rapid progress in reinforcement-learning-driven manipulation. For SoftBank, the exit frees capital for its massive OpenAI and AI infrastructure commitments.
Reporting based on coverage from KED Global, Startup Fortune and Humanoid Press.