Insider Brief
- NAVER D2SF led a pre-seed investment in physical AI startup Khameleon, alongside Base Ventures, Mashup Ventures, The Ventures, Schmidt Ventures and additional institutional investors from the United States and the United Kingdom, marking the company’s first funding round since its founding.
- Khameleon is developing robots designed to automate hotel housekeeping tasks in North America, targeting labor shortages and high turnover rates in the hospitality sector, with an initial restroom-cleaning prototype scheduled to begin on-site testing in Q2 2026.
- The startup’s founding team includes robotics and AI engineers with experience at Tesla, Apple, Meta and Bear Robotics, and plans to use the funding to accelerate field testing in hotels, expand its engineering team and develop partnerships with global hospitality customers.
PRESS RELEASE — NAVER D2SF, NAVER‘s in-house corporate venture arm, has invested in Khameleon (CEO, Donghoon Lee), a physical AI startup tackling challenges in highly specialized, real-world environments. This pre-seed round marks Khameleon’s first funding round since its founding, with participation from NAVER D2SF, Base Ventures, Mashup Ventures, The Ventures, and Schmidt Ventures, as well as institutional investors from the United States and the United Kingdom.
Khameleon is developing robots designed for housekeeping tasks in North American hotels. The hotel industry in the region faces severe labor shortages and rising wages, creating strong demand for automation. Housekeeping in particular is affected by annual turnover rates of 70–80%, compelling hotels to raise wages significantly year over year simply to attract and retain workers. However, the complexity and high-quality standards of hotel housekeeping have proven difficult for existing commercial robot solutions to meet.
Khameleon has designed versatile hardware capable of handling everything from restroom cleaning to full-scope housekeeping, and has built an infrastructure that enables ultra-low-latency control across diverse network environments. Having validated market demand in both the U.S. and China, the company has already secured a pipeline of prospective customers. A restroom-cleaning prototype is set to begin on-site testing in Q2 2026, with plans to gradually expand its capabilities to cover all housekeeping tasks.
Khameleon’s founding team, led by CEO Donghoon Lee, brings extensive expertise in computer vision, robot control, and teleoperation from Tesla, Apple, Meta, and Bear Robotics. The team has also participated in large-scale robotics projects — including the mass production of over 20,000 robots — giving them rare depth in both robotics development and commercialization.
Donghoon Lee, CEO of Khameleon, said, “Cleaning is a universal necessity, yet core tasks like restroom cleaning and housekeeping remain largely manual — and that’s exactly the problem Khameleon is here to solve. With this investment, we will accelerate our on-site testing in North American hotels, grow our team, and expand partnerships with global customers.”
Yang Sang-hwan, Head of NAVER D2SF, stated, “Khameleon combines deep technical expertise with hands-on field experience, positioning the team to solve real-world hotel challenges and demonstrate the value of physical AI.” He added, “NAVER D2SF will continue to invest in startups that leverage their unique strengths to rapidly build success and write a new playbook for physical AI.”
About NAVER D2SF
NAVER D2SF is NAVER’s in-house corporate venture arm, supporting sustainable growth by collaborating with startups. Founded in 1999, NAVER has maintained its position as Korea’s leading search engine for over 20 years and operates across commerce, content, fintech, and cloud services. Under the technological vision of D2 (For Developers, By Developers), NAVER is actively developing new technologies and global partnerships to grow as a leading tech company.
To learn more, visit https://d2sf.naver.com
