Summary
Ghost Robotics builds the Vision 60, a rugged four-legged unmanned ground vehicle used primarily by military, homeland security, and government customers for reconnaissance, base security, and inspection in unstructured terrain. Founded in 2015 as a University of Pennsylvania spin-off, the Philadelphia-based company has drawn both defense contracts and civil-liberties controversy over armed and border-surveillance uses of its robots, and became majority-owned by South Korean defense firm LIG Nex1 in a $240 million deal in 2024.
Company Story
Ghost Robotics grew out of research by PhD students Avik De and Gavin Kenneally in Professor Daniel Koditschek’s Kod*lab at the University of Pennsylvania, where they developed direct-drive legged robots including an early platform called Minitaur. In late 2015, they were introduced to Jiren Parikh, a veteran enterprise-software executive and entrepreneur, who joined as CEO and personally financed the company’s earliest operations on his credit cards while De and Kenneally continued developing the technology (Forbes).
The company won its first U.S. Department of Defense contract in 2017 and raised roughly $1 million in early venture funding shortly after. By 2018, Ghost Robotics had launched the first commercial version of its Vision 60 quadrupedal unmanned ground vehicle (Q-UGV), selling units to U.S. Army Special Operations Command. Over the following years, the company added stair-climbing, self-righting, and perception capabilities to Vision 60, deployed its first base-security robots at U.S. Air Force installations starting with Tyndall Air Force Base in 2020, and grew from roughly 10 employees to more than 60 by the mid-2020s while also beginning to market to commercial customers (Ghost Robotics).
Ghost Robotics has also drawn sustained public controversy. In October 2021, the company exhibited a Vision 60 fitted with a sniper rifle built by SWORD International at a defense trade show, prompting criticism over the prospect of weaponized “robot dogs.” In February 2022, the Department of Homeland Security disclosed roughly two and a half years of joint testing with Ghost Robotics on using Vision 60 robots for U.S.-Mexico border surveillance, which the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other civil-liberties groups criticized as an escalation of border militarization (The Verge; EFF). Co-founder and CEO Jiren Parikh died in March 2022 at age 55, and co-founder Gavin Kenneally became CEO. In July 2024, South Korean defense firm LIG Nex1 acquired a 60% controlling stake in Ghost Robotics for $240 million, valuing the company at $400 million, with Kenneally and De remaining in their roles and the company continuing to operate from Philadelphia.
Founders
Avik De co-founded Ghost Robotics and serves as Chief Technology Officer. As a PhD student in the University of Pennsylvania’s Kod*lab under Professor Daniel Koditschek, he worked on direct-drive legged robot platforms that became the technical foundation for the Vision 60 (Technical.ly).
Gavin Kenneally co-founded Ghost Robotics and became CEO after Jiren Parikh’s death in 2022. Like De, he completed his PhD at Penn’s Kod*lab, and has represented the company publicly on matters ranging from product design to its partnership with LIG Nex1 (PR Newswire).
Jiren Parikh co-founded Ghost Robotics in 2015 and served as its first CEO. An Indian immigrant with more than 30 years of experience as a technology entrepreneur and executive, he joined De and Kenneally after being introduced through Penn’s innovation center, initially self-financing the company before it won its first defense contract. Parikh died on March 4, 2022, at age 55 (Scarponi Funeral Homes; Forbes).
Products
Ghost Robotics’ flagship product is the Vision 60, a quadrupedal unmanned ground vehicle (Q-UGV) weighing roughly 70-100 pounds that is designed to traverse sand, rocks, hills, stairs, and other unstructured natural and human-built terrain that wheeled or tracked robots struggle with. The robot carries modular sensor and camera payloads, including thermal and night-vision cameras, and Ghost Robotics’ “Mission Control” software provides autonomous navigation and mission execution in both GPS-enabled and GPS-denied environments (Ghost Robotics; DHS). In 2025, the company launched a manipulator arm attachment for Vision 60, extending it from pure mobility into basic manipulation tasks.
Vision 60 has been used by military, law enforcement, and homeland-security customers for reconnaissance, perimeter and base security, bomb detection, and infrastructure inspection, and by 2024 more than 450 units had reportedly been sold to customers including U.S., South Korean, and Japanese armed forces. Vision 60 has also been fitted experimentally with weapons by third parties, including a SWORD International rifle shown in 2021 and, per reporting from The War Zone, evaluation of a rifle-equipped variant (“SWORD SPUR”) by U.S. Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command in 2024; Ghost Robotics has not confirmed active weaponization of fielded production units.
Funding
Ghost Robotics’ founders have been unusually reticent about disclosing the company’s funding history. In a 2022 Forbes interview, CEO Jiren Parikh confirmed the company raised approximately $1 million in venture funding shortly after winning its first Defense Department contract in 2017, but declined to detail subsequent rounds, saying “We haven’t raised much at all… We’ve had a lot of people wanting to throw money at us. We’re very conservative” (Forbes). Third-party analysis has estimated total venture funding prior to 2024 at roughly $60 million, though this figure is not confirmed by the company itself.
In July 2024, South Korean defense technology firm LIG Nex1 acquired a 60% controlling stake in Ghost Robotics for $240 million, valuing the company at $400 million (PR Newswire). Korean-language financial reporting has since indicated that the special-purpose entity LIG Nex1 used for the acquisition recorded more than 140 billion won (roughly $100 million) in impairment losses on Ghost Robotics-related intangible assets and goodwill within about a year of the deal, and that LIG Nex1 continued injecting capital via convertible notes in 2024 and 2025. LIG Nex1 has publicly maintained that it still plans to pursue a U.S. IPO of Ghost Robotics by 2029 as agreed at the time of acquisition (The Korea Herald).
Partnerships
Ghost Robotics’ most significant customer relationships are with defense and homeland-security agencies, including the U.S. Army Special Operations Command, U.S. Air Force (Vision 60 deployments at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida, Portland Air National Guard Base in Oregon, and Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico), and the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate, which co-developed border-security use cases with Ghost Robotics over roughly two and a half years before disclosing the program publicly in 2022. International military customers reportedly include South Korea, Japan, and other U.S. allies.
Its most consequential corporate relationship is with LIG Nex1, which became Ghost Robotics’ majority owner in 2024 and has continued to fund the company through convertible notes while planning an eventual U.S. listing. Ghost Robotics also settled a multi-year patent dispute with rival Boston Dynamics (majority-owned by Hyundai Motor Group) in 2025, agreeing to pay Boston Dynamics royalties of up to 10% of quadruped robot sales through 2035 as part of the resolution.
Timeline
- 2015: Avik De, Gavin Kenneally, and Jiren Parikh found Ghost Robotics out of the University of Pennsylvania’s Kod*lab.
- 2017: Ghost Robotics wins its first U.S. Department of Defense contract and raises about $1 million in early venture funding.
- 2018: Vision 60 launches commercially, with sales to U.S. Army Special Operations Command.
- 2020: Ghost Robotics deploys its first base-security robots at Tyndall Air Force Base.
- October 2021: A rifle-equipped Vision 60 is exhibited publicly, sparking controversy over armed robot dogs.
- February 2022: DHS discloses border-surveillance testing of Vision 60 robots.
- March 2022: Co-founder and CEO Jiren Parikh dies; Gavin Kenneally becomes CEO.
- November 2022: Boston Dynamics sues Ghost Robotics for patent infringement.
- July 2024: LIG Nex1 acquires a 60% controlling stake in Ghost Robotics for $240 million.
- 2025: Ghost Robotics and Boston Dynamics settle their patent litigation; Ghost Robotics launches a manipulator arm for Vision 60.
Market Context
Ghost Robotics competes most directly with Boston Dynamics (Spot), its best-known rival in military and industrial legged robotics, and with Unitree Robotics’ lower-cost quadrupeds in some commercial and export markets. Both Ghost Robotics and Boston Dynamics are now majority-owned by South Korean industrial conglomerates — LIG Nex1 and Hyundai Motor Group, respectively — turning what was once a US-based rivalry into a competition between two Korean-backed legged-robot portfolios pursuing many of the same U.S. and allied military contracts. Ghost Robotics has positioned itself specifically around defense and homeland-security use cases, in contrast to Boston Dynamics’ broader push into industrial and commercial deployments, and its Vision 60 sits at the center of an ongoing public debate over the weaponization and surveillance use of legged robots.
Source Notes
This profile draws on Ghost Robotics’ own website, a 2022 Forbes profile of the company and its founders, reporting from The Philadelphia Inquirer, PR Newswire, Technical.ly, and The Korea Herald on the LIG Nex1 acquisition and its aftermath, contemporaneous news coverage (The Verge, EFF, DHS materials) on border-security testing and armed-robot controversy, and a LinkedIn post documenting the Boston Dynamics patent settlement. Ghost Robotics’ founders have deliberately declined to disclose detailed funding figures, so pre-2024 funding totals rely on third-party estimates rather than company disclosures; the exact terms and current financial performance of the LIG Nex1 relationship should be re-verified as more audited financial detail becomes available, particularly ahead of any 2029 IPO.