Unichem puts first $1.5m Loomia payment on hold as bank approval stalls its robot e-skin takeover

Unichem, a Korean-listed materials maker, said in a corrected DART filing on Oct 16 that a $1.5 million cash instalment for its takeover of US tactile-sensing company Loomia Technologies, due that day, has not been paid and now has no set date, because its foreign-exchange bank has not completed the approval required under Korea's Foreign Exchange Transactions Act.

The rest of the deal is unchanged, the filing said: Unichem is buying 100% of Loomia (2,753,881 shares) for KRW 8.57bn, equal to $6.0 million and 6.48% of Unichem's equity, through a reverse triangular merger with a new US subsidiary.

The price is mixed: $4.0 million in cash ($1.5 million now pending and $2.5 million on Jan 4, 2027, the closing target), $1.0 million in Unichem shares before May 31, 2027, and a $1.0 million earn-out convertible bond paid in two $0.5 million tranches if Loomia wins a mass-production project with an automotive partner or a robot and tactile-sensing project before Dec 30, 2028.

A further $300,000 in signing and retention bonuses sits outside the price. Unichem states the purpose as securing mass-production work with automotive Tier 1 and OEM partners and core robotics and tactile-sensing technology.

The filing's figures show a small target: Loomia booked KRW 419m in 2025 revenue with a KRW 509m net loss and negative equity of KRW 406m, after KRW 1.73bn revenue and a profit in 2024. In MEKAWIRE's database, tactile sensing for robot hands has so far drawn venture money, such as Tangent Robotics' $4.5 million pre-seed on Sept 30; Unichem is taking the acquisition route as a materials supplier instead.