iRobot, which officially entered our country in 2019, is being bought by Amazon. Known for pioneering robotic vacuum cleaners, the company had made millions of sales, especially with its Roomba model.
Amazon’s value for the popular home robotics firm is $1.7 billion. Colin Angle, who is currently the CEO and co-founder of iRobot, will remain in the same position, while the entire purchase will be made in cash.
Amazon wants to grow in robotics technology
iRobot isn’t Amazon’s first investment in robotics. The firm bought Kiva Systems, which manufactures autonomous robots, in 2012. Since then, the Amazon Robotics division has focused solely on warehouse and shipping areas. Last year, the company’s vision was expanded with the launch of the Amazon Astro smart home robot.
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Amazon and iRobot’s convergence has only gotten closer over the past few years, thanks to the Roomba robot vacuum’s use of Alexa and AWS servers. Finally, this rapprochement process turned into an important partnership.
iRobot was founded in 1990 by MIT’s Colin Angle, Rodney Brooks, and Helen Greiner. While two of the founding partners concentrated on different areas and went their separate ways, Angle brought his company up to this time. Introducing the Roomba robot vacuum cleaner in 2002, the company has made a total of 30 million sales under this brand until 2020.
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