Raon Robotics starts KRW 60bn Yongin wafer-robot plant, 3x its Suwon site
Raon Robotics, a KOSDAQ-listed maker of wafer transfer robots, said on Oct 23 that it held a groundbreaking ceremony on Oct 20 for a new head office and plant in Yongin's second Techno Valley: 23,861 square metres of floor space, three times its Suwon site, costing about KRW 60 billion and due for completion at the end of 2027.
Its DART filing puts the cleanroom alone at KRW 11.4 billion, 31.85% of equity, paid from cash and bank loans. MEKAWIRE's reading of the filings: the whole project is about 1.7 times the company's equity, built while first-half operating profit fell 24%.
Raon Robotics, a KOSDAQ-listed company that builds the robots moving silicon wafers inside chipmaking equipment, has started building a plant that costs more than the company's own equity. The firm said on Oct 23 that it held the groundbreaking for a new head office and factory in Yongin's second Techno Valley on Oct 20, with completion targeted for the end of 2027 and a move of its head office and production in early 2028.
The building will have 23,861 square metres of floor space on a 4,499 square metre plot, one basement and seven floors above ground, about three times the company's current site in Suwon, according to the company's statement. It put the total cost at about KRW 60 billion and said demand from overseas customers is the reason for the expansion.
The filing shows the cleanroom grew before the ground was broken
The only part of the project that Raon has filed in detail is the cleanroom. A corrected new-facility filing to DART on Sep 1 raised that budget from KRW 9.69 billion to KRW 11.385 billion, or 31.85% of end-2025 equity of KRW 35.74 billion, after the planned cleanroom area grew from 7,689 to 9,099 square metres. The money is to come from cash on hand and bank borrowings, and the investment period runs from June 18, 2026 to Sep 30, 2027. The filing describes the site as land the company bought under an asset-acquisition report of Dec 15, 2025.
Raon, which changed its name from Raontec in December 2025, sells the VACTRA series of vacuum transfer robots and the ATRA series for atmospheric transfer, plus automation for biotech labs, according to its website. Chief executive Kim Won-kyung called the plant a forward base for becoming a top-tier global robot company.
MEKAWIRE analysis: a balance-sheet bet made while margins are thinning
At about 1.7 times equity, the Yongin plant is a wager that overseas wafer-handling orders will keep growing faster than the margin pressure visible in this year's numbers.
- Total plant investment
- About KRW 60.0bn
- Company statement, Oct 23
- Cleanroom works
- KRW 11.385bn (was 9.69bn)
- DART, Sep 1, 2026
- Equity at end-2025
- KRW 35.74bn
- DART, Sep 1, 2026
- Total investment / equity
- 1.68x
- MEKAWIRE calculation
- H1 2026 revenue
- KRW 32.33bn (+24.6%)
- DART, Jul 31, 2026
- H1 2026 operating profit
- KRW 1.51bn (-24.3%)
- DART, Jul 31, 2026
- H1 operating margin
- 4.7% (H1 2025: 7.7%)
- MEKAWIRE calculation
Preliminary results are unaudited. Ratios: total investment divided by end-2025 consolidated equity; operating profit divided by revenue. As of Oct 23, 2026.
As of Oct 23, 2026
The preliminary results Raon filed on July 31 show why the timing matters. First-half revenue rose 24.6% to KRW 32.3 billion and second-quarter revenue rose 33.5% to KRW 18.2 billion, but first-half operating profit fell 24.3% to KRW 1.5 billion and second-quarter operating profit fell 68.2% to KRW 565 million. The operating margin halved from 7.7% to 4.7% on our calculation. A KRW 60 billion project equals about 1.9 times first-half revenue, and the filing says part of it will be borrowed.
The counter-argument is that a cleanroom is what customers audit before they qualify a robot supplier for new tools, and that Raon enlarged it by 18% in September, which suggests firm demand rather than a speculative build. Wafer transfer robots are a narrow, specification-heavy niche inside semiconductor equipment, and MEKAWIRE's coverage of fab automation, such as Kowin Robotics' plan with Youibot for mobile manipulators that carry 12-inch wafers (story), shows Korean suppliers moving further into the fab.
Signals to watch: the third-quarter preliminary results, due around the end of October, for whether margins recover; any DART filing for the building and interior contracts, which the September filing said would follow; and borrowing disclosures before completion at the end of 2027.
- Yongin second Techno Valley; land 4,499 m2, floor space 23,861 m2, B1 to 7F
- Groundbreaking of new Yongin head office and plant, Oct 20, 2026 (announced Oct 23)
- Cash on hand and bank borrowings (DART)
- Completion end-2027; head office and production move in early 2028
- KRW 11.385bn, 31.85% of equity, cleanroom area 9,099 m2 (was 7,689 m2)
- About KRW 60bn (company statement)
- Revenue KRW 32.3bn (+24.6%), operating profit KRW 1.5bn (-24.3%)