Roomba’s Parent Company Files for Chapter 11–No More ‘Cat Rides?’

It was a device that revolutionized vacuuming as we know it, and led to hilarious videos of cat rides. Now, it's going away...sort of.

 i Robot files for Chapter 11

According to multiple sources including TechCrunch, the parent company of the Roomba vacuum has filed for bankruptcy, it happened the weekend of December 13-14.

A trio of MIT students and an instructor created iRobot in 1990. Rodney Brooks, an MIT Roboticist, and former students Colin Angle and Helen Greiner, launched the idea after years of Brooks studying the movement of insects and their ability to detect objects in rooms and move around them.  He then applied that to the concept of vacuuming.

He designed a robotic vacuum that could 'read' the room and program itself to sweep up just about anything off your floor.

The Roomba made its debut in 2002, sold over 50 million units. But now its changing forever. Dropping sales over the last decade due to increased knockoff competition and an abandoned sale to Amazon 3 years ago led to the demise. European competitors and others objected to Amazon's purchase, believing it would corner the auto-robot vacuum market and create unfair competition.

Finally, the company decided to file Chapter 11. It's a reorganizational move, i Robot's main supplier, Shenzhen PICEA Robotics of China, will take over the reshuffled company.

Over the years, social media has been full of images and videos of cats, and even other animals, riding on Roombas.   (YouTube video still image Texas Girly 1979).

Shenzen has been building Roombas for i Robot for about 15 years.  So while it will continue, the current economic climate between China and the US, and some of the rest of the world, will be watched to see how sales continue going forward.

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According to Tech Crunch, the jury is still out on this business move:

"In its release, iRobot similarly promises to keep supporting existing products during restructuring; at the same time, its legal disclosures acknowledge the inherent uncertainties of bankruptcy — whether suppliers stick around, whether the process goes as planned, whether the company survives at all."