Pablo Air secures $15.5 mn in pre-IPO investment

Pablo Air Co. Ltd., a specialized drone control company, announced on Friday that it has attracted an investment of 21 billion won ($15.5 million) in a pre-IPO round ahead of its planned technology-specialized listing in the second half of next year. As a result, the cumulative investment for the company has now reached 43 billion won.

Participating investors in this round include Korea Development Bank, Be-High Investment-Kiwoom Asset Management, Lee Soo-man (an individual investor), Daishin Securities-SBI Investment, Yuanta Securities, Xplor Investment and Masang Soft. Of these, Xplor is the corporate venture capital of GS Engineering & Construction Co.

Pablo Air, established in 2018, is a technology-focused company with expertise in "unmanned mobile autonomous swarm flight" and an "integrated control system" at its core.

It is primarily engaged in drone shows, drone delivery and urban air mobility (UAM) commercialization. Additionally, it is involved in defense unmanned mobile vehicle projects.

With this new investment, Pablo Air aims to expand into international markets. The company is placing particular emphasis on selling performance drones developed with its own technology and expanding its presence in international drone shows.

To achieve this, the company recently appointed Kenny (Won-kyung) Kim, who oversaw the drone show at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics for Intel, as Vice President of its US subsidiary. It is developing export channels for drone sales that can perform multimedia shows with a fully equipped mass-production system.

Furthermore, Pablo Air introduced the possibility of commercializing goods delivery using drones last year. It is in the process of creating a revenue model and execution plan after obtaining lightweight flight operator licenses and night flight approvals. In July of last year, it opened the first drone delivery center in South Korea.

In the field of UAM, it is planning to expand the domestic and international drone and UAM ecosystems. This includes developing drone traffic management (UTM), analyzing and digitizing drone and aviation industry trends, and establishing infrastructure.

The company participated in the first phase of the Grand Challenge as the first startup in the K-UAM (Korean Urban Air Mobility) consortium last year. It is currently co-developing a UAM traffic management platform with LG Uplus and an urban landing platform operation system with GS E&C.

"The investment market has been challenging, but it has proven the potential and growth of Pablo Air," said Kim Young-Joon, CEO of Pablo Air. 

"The funds raised in this investment will be a cornerstone for intensifying our technological capabilities and securing profitability. We plan to reinvest 10% of the investment amount into startups that can synergize with us and help build the unmanned mobility ecosystem," he added.

Write to See-Eun Lee at see@hankyung.com