One of Singapore’s better known robotics names is winding down rather than scaling up.
Kabam Robotics will halt trading from November 20, per an email to customers that The Business Times obtained. Leaders said sorry for the disruption, thanked buyers for their past trust, and urged anyone with unfinished business to reach out before the cutoff. Nobody offered an explanation, and the firm did not immediately answer press queries.
Airport terminals and shopping malls
Precision engineering group Patec spun it out in 2020, keeping a controlling stake; Patec’s shares trade in Taiwan. Two years later the young business absorbed Cognicept Systems, another local startup. Its units patrol and inspect premises indoors and outdoors, with video surveillance and management software doing the watching.
Buyers have ranged from guard firms Aetos and Certis to Changi Airport Group, JTC Corporation, AWS and Mandai Wildlife Group. By 2023 more than 150 machines were working worldwide, sited at places like Jewel Changi Airport, Paya Lebar Quarter and Toa Payoh HDB Hub. The company’s LinkedIn page credits it with 54 staff.
The retreat lands awkwardly for Singapore’s robotics push. Kabam sat in the first cohort of six firms backed by RoboNexus, a National Robotics Programme accelerator piloted in September 2024 and formally opened in March 2025 to hand local startups mentoring, business development help and routes into overseas markets. It was one of just two companies to draw on the program’s research and talent pipelines while still in product development.
Guard robots have proved easier to demo than to scale, with deployments often tied to a handful of anchor customers and long procurement cycles.
