The inside story of the crisis at Infinium Robotics

Infinium Robotics CEO Junyang Woon (right) demonstrates his technology to Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Photo credit: Infinium.

In 2015, Infinium Robotics stepped into the spotlight after showing off what its indoor drones could do at a popular restaurant in Singapore. Two years later it made headlines again, but for the wrong reasons.

Infinium CEO Junyang Woon was charged by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) in April for four counts of failing to pay salaries to employees upon the termination of their contracts. In an exclusive interview with Tech in Asia, Woon revealed that his company has been slapped with a US$5,120 fine by a Singapore court, marking the conclusion of the case. All obligations had been paid and he will avoid jail time, he stated.

“I made some mistakes as an entrepreneur and I have learned a lot from them,” he told us.

Not all is lost. Woon expressed relief that the decision has finally brought closure to the matter. “I am happy that my team and I can now move on to deliver our robotics products to the market and realize our dreams.”

Constant payment delays

The company made autonomous drones that operate within walls. It first piloted the drones at live music bar and restaurant Timbre, making them do the legwork that serving staff did, whisking food from the kitchen to the dining area. At the time, the company had signed a US$750,000 seed round from Singapore government scheme SPRING TECS.

Photo credit: Infinium.

Despite all the good press, three former employees we spoke with said their salaries had been delayed for months until the company stopped paying them altogether in June 2016. Those people, who asked to remain anonymous so as not to jeopardize future job prospects, gave us a first-hand account of their ordeal. They were among a team of 10 working on drone insurance software that Infinium had planned to spin off.

“Every week he would say our salaries would come this day. You’d wait for that day but it didn’t come,” one said. Days turned to weeks, then months. “[The delays] got longer and longer, and at some point he just stopped paying.”

Woon supposedly gave them excuses. “He was blaming the banks, blaming this and that… Everyday it was a new thing,” the person added.

“He used to say there was a transaction issue with the bank, or he would blame the payroll company… or that he was waiting for funding from an investor,” another said.

As a result, a lot of their personal plans had to be shelved, they lamented.

By September 2016 – when it was clear they weren’t going to be paid – the team quit, one other ex-staffer told Tech in Asia. “We had not received a termination of our employment agreement. We just received an email that we wouldn’t be getting salaries. That for me was enough of a termination letter.”

Cash crunch

Hard lessons