Hyundai postpones Boston Dynamics IPO due to Atlas not being ready to scale
English translation from Unibot. Source published 2026-09-21.
Boston Dynamics is unlikely to go public next year. The reason is simple: the Atlas humanoid robot has not yet been put into mass production, and the company remains unprofitable.
A senior representative of Hyundai Motor Group told Reuters about this. The interlocutor wished to remain anonymous - the topic is confidential. According to him, the placement “will not be easy” and depends on market conditions.
No official dates were announced
Reuters published these comments in the Cyprus Mail. Hyundai has not publicly announced a timeline or target valuation for Boston Dynamics' IPO. So this is more about the expectations of investors and analysts, and not about the missed official deadline.
Interest in the listing was fueled after Boston Dynamics showed off the production version of the Atlas at CES in Las Vegas in January. Hyundai Motor shares more than doubled at the start of the year on the back of that presentation, but then gave away most of the gains as investors never received clear details about the group's robotics strategy.
Losses remain severe
In 2025, Boston Dynamics recorded a loss of 528.4 billion won. This follows from the reporting of Hyundai Glovis, cited by Reuters. Cumulative losses from 2021 to 2025 amounted to nearly 1.7 trillion won. Hyundai Glovis owns about 11 percent of the robotics company.
Hyundai bought a controlling stake in Boston Dynamics in 2021. In July, the group announced plans to buy out SoftBank's roughly 10 percent stake and make Boston Dynamics a wholly owned subsidiary. The media estimated the deal at approximately 500 billion won ($371.51 million), although the valuation was not officially disclosed.
Estimates of the company's potential capitalization on the stock exchange are still extremely speculative. Samsung Securities calls the range from 50 to 100 trillion won. IBK Securities forecasts 141 trillion won by 2030, assuming revenue could reach about 11 trillion won by then.
Atlas Deployment - First Test
Hyundai has said it wants to build a plant capable of producing 30,000 robots a year by 2028. In the same year, the company plans to begin introducing humanoid robots at its plant in Georgia, and then at other sites in the production network. Analysts quoted by Reuters call these goals ambitious.
The technical and operational gap is far greater than the polished demonstration would lead you to believe. Kim Hyun-soo, senior fund manager at IBK Asset Management, says making robots dance is relatively easy compared to carrying heavy loads and participating in factory production.
Kim Joon-sung, an analyst at Meritz Securities, expects an IPO for Boston Dynamics in 2029 or 2030, not in the coming years. His assessment is that Hyundai first needs extensive operational data, stronger robotic capabilities and proof that the Atlas can be sold outside Hyundai's own factories. Until these implementations produce measurable results, broad valuation estimates have little to back them up - there's little operational history behind them.