Five Doosan Group companies are setting up a 200 billion won ($140 million) fund to scout new technologies.
Doosan (000150.KS), Doosan Enerbility (034020.KS), Doosan Bobcat (241560.KS), Doosan Tesna (131970.KS) and Doosan Robotics (454910.KS) will each contribute 40 billion won to Doosan Investment, the group's corporate venture capital arm, to form the 200 billion won fund, the group said on the 27th. The fund is named the Doosan New Technology Investment Fund No. 2. Doosan Investment will identify target companies and execute investments, while the affiliates will share returns based on the fund's performance.
The group doubled the size of the second fund from its predecessor. When the first fund was launched in 2024, each company contributed 20 billion won for a total of 100 billion won. Doosan later took part in a rights offering by Doosan Investment, putting in an additional 13 billion won.
Doosan Group said the purpose of the new fund is to "identify and invest in promising venture companies." Investments are expected to center on areas the group has flagged as future growth drivers, including robotics, semiconductors, artificial intelligence, automation and green energy.
Doosan Investment made its first investment in June 2024, backing Unicon, a fabless chip designer, and joined the pre-Series A round of Mandro, a robotic prosthetic hand startup, in July that year. When Doosan Group invested a combined 5.8 million euros (about 9.9 billion won) in AMI Labs, founded by New York University professor Yann LeCun, in February this year, Doosan Investment accounted for 2 million euros of that amount.
In April, Doosan Investment joined a Series A bridge round for Wilco, a maker of high-performance electronic materials. Wilco holds technology for copper clad laminate (CCL) that combines low dielectric constant with high heat dissipation, as well as thermal insulation materials for electric vehicle batteries. It supplies materials to industries that require high-frequency and high-temperature performance, including defense radar, satellite communications and AI servers. That gives the company potential synergy with Doosan's electronics business group, which also makes CCL.
"We will invest ahead of the curve in promising sectors that can create synergy with Doosan Group's existing businesses over the medium to long term, securing opportunities to adopt new technologies and identifying potential acquisition targets," a Doosan Group official said.