Spot the robot dog’s owner, Boston Dynamics, officially sold to Hyundai

Hyundai Motor Group bought a controlling stake in the robotics company for a cool $1.1 billion.

Spot the friendly robot dog has a new owner. Well, the company that makes this computer-controlled pooch does. On Monday, SoftBank announced Hyundai Motor Group officially took a controlling stake in Boston Dynamics, which tinkers with robots like Spot. Hyundai and SoftBank first revealed the deal last year, but as of today, Hyundai now owns a controlling stake — at least 80% of the firm.

The companies didn’t provide any additional details surrounding the deal, but we know Hyundai plopped down $1.1 billion to make this sale happen. As for what Boston Dynamics’ new owner wants from the company, that’s also totally unclear. The best we can assume is that Hyundai’s pretty interested in robots. The automaker previously announced a new division dedicated to creating “walking cars” and other robots, so it could be the company’s keen to have Boston Dynamics on its team as it pursues that. I can see it now: “Every new Hyundai walking car comes with your very own robot dog!”

That’s probably not the case, but still, it’s a massive acquisition for the Korean automaker and we’re mighty curious to see what Hyundai plans to do with this robotics firm. If anything, the company could help Hyundai design new robots for manufacturing and logistics. That’s not as fun, but could be highly valuable nonetheless.