Online trading giant Amazon wants to take over the US service robot manufacturer Roomba. The companies announced Friday that they had agreed a purchase price of $61 per share. This means that iRobot, including its outstanding debts, is valued at around 1.7 billion dollars (1.67 billion euros). Amazon wants to pay the amount in cash. However, shareholders and regulators still have to agree.
iRobot was founded in 1990 by three researchers at a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) computer science lab and has been publicly traded since 2003. The company is best known for its vacuum cleaner robots called Roomba, but also has mopping, lawn mowing and pool cleaning robots on offer. The military technology division was separated in 2016. According to iRobot, it has sold 40 million of its service robots worldwide.
Robots for the warehouse and home
It remained unclear whether iRobot would continue to exist as a brand after a successful takeover or whether it would run under the Amazon label in the future. In any case, Colin Angle should remain the head of the company. Angle and Dave Limp, Amazon’s senior vice president of devices, said they would work together on new devices for consumers. In September 2021, Amazon had already introduced the first household robot called Astro.
When it comes to robotics, Amazon has so far mainly invested in the automation of its own warehouses. The fully autonomous robot Proteus was presented here only recently. The technology comes from the subsidiary Amazon Robotics, which emerged from the automation specialist Kiva, which was acquired in 2012.
