Drone maker Preneu raises KRW 16.6bn Series D led by IBK ahead of KOSDAQ listing bid

Preneu, a drone maker based in Ansan, south of Seoul, has closed a KRW 16.6 billion Series D, Yonhap Infomax reported on Oct 30. The company republished the report on its own newsroom the same day, which is the closest it has come to a release on the round. Industrial Bank of Korea led, according to the report, with Korea Investment & Securities, New Main Capital, MVG Investment, IBK Capital, Life Asset Management, BNK Investment & Securities, K&Investment Partners and Triangle Partners also taking part. No valuation was disclosed. On Oct 14 Preneu posted notices of a new share issue and an extraordinary shareholders meeting on its site, consistent with the round closing this month.

Where the money goes: attack drones and a bigger production line

Chief financial officer Cho Jae-hwan told the outlet the funds will go into long-endurance and heavy-lift airframes, the design of attack drones, more mass-production capacity for existing aircraft, and image-processing and autonomous-flight software. The report says Preneu already builds in volume at Intops' plant in Gumi, is co-developing military drones with Hanwha Aerospace, Korea Aerospace Industries and Poongsan, and won an army contract this year to supply commercial training drones. Its own history page records that the Defense Acquisition Program Administration confirmed the military suitability of its battalion-level multipurpose helicopter drone in October 2025, and that it set up a production joint venture in Kazakhstan the same month.

The audit report shows what the round has to fund

The report put 2025 revenue at KRW 11.3 billion. Preneu's audit report, filed on DART on Mar 31, confirms it: KRW 11.30 billion, up 40.7% from KRW 8.03 billion. It also shows what the report left out. Gross profit was flat at KRW 1.78 billion, so the gross margin fell from 22.0% to 15.8%, and selling and administrative costs of KRW 11.38 billion exceeded revenue. The operating loss widened to KRW 9.60 billion from KRW 7.23 billion and the net loss to KRW 12.31 billion. By MEKAWIRE's arithmetic the Series D equals 1.7 times the 2025 operating loss.

One more check: the company's history page lists Series A to C at KRW 33 billion; adding the Series D gives KRW 49.6 billion, about KRW 1 billion short of the KRW 50.6 billion cumulative figure in the report, a gap most likely explained by a pre-A round the page does not list.

Why it matters

Korean robotics funding this autumn has gone mostly to ground robots, such as Hurotics' KRW 25 billion Series A for walking exosuits. Preneu is a bet on defence demand for domestically built unmanned aircraft, where its own flight control and datalink stack is the selling point. The report says the company has begun a technology evaluation and plans to file for a KOSDAQ preliminary review early next year, aiming to list in the second quarter of 2027. The listing filing will be the first document to show whether revenue doubled in 2026, as the company is targeting.