Rakuten invests in drone developer

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Rakuten Inc says it will invest in Autonomous Control Systems Laboratory Ltd. (ACSL) through underwriting a capital increase by third party allotment and obtaining new shares by Kikuchi Seisakusho Co Ltd, an existing shareholder.

Drone development and usage is a fast-growing field that has been attracting global attention in recent years. Japan is also making progress with research and development in the form of industry-academia-government collaborations and with creating an environment for commercialization, and further growth is envisaged for the future.

ACSL is a university-originated venture involved in the research and development of drones as well as their manufacture and sale. By applying fully-automated drone technologies developed since 1998 in the laboratory of Kenzo Nonami, a special professor at Chiba University, it is aiming to capture the market with a purely domestically-made drone capable of being used in industrial settings.

In the future, the two companies will work together while capitalizing on their respective strengths in the utilization of industrial drones, in order to deliver innovation to society with technologies and services originating in Japan.