Amazon is ready to make one other main acquisition.
The Seattle tech large mentioned Friday it is going to scoop up iRobot, the Boston-area firm recognized for its Roomba vacuum, in a $1.7 billion deal.
The information comes simply two weeks after Amazon announced it is going to purchase main care firm One Medical for $3.9 billion.
This may be Amazon’s fourth-largest acquisition ever, behind its $13.7 billion buy of Entire Meals, the $8.45 billion deal to purchase MGM, and the One Medical acquisition.
The iRobot deal indicators Amazon’s massive urge for food for acquisitions amid the financial downturn and regardless of growing U.S. antitrust scrutiny.
Amazon will purchase iRobot for $61 per share, a couple of 22% premium from the corporate’s inventory value at market shut Thursday. Shares of iRobot have been up almost 20% in pre-market buying and selling Friday.
The deal marks Amazon’s newest funding within the sensible house. The corporate is working by itself house robotic, Astro, which debuted in September, and has an array of sensible house know-how merchandise resembling Ring cameras and Alexa-enabled units.
Amazon acquired Ring in 2018 for $1 billion, and acquired mesh WiFi startup eero in 2019.
There are current connections between Amazon and iRobot: Alexa can control Roomba devices already, and iRobot makes use of Amazon Web Services.
Along with shopper robotics, Amazon can be developing robots for the company’s warehouses. Amazon earlier this yr invested in Agility Robotics, maker of a bipedal warehouse robotic referred to as Digit. It acquired warehouse robotic developer Kiva for $775 million in 2012.
Ken Washington, who leads the Astro workforce as Amazon’s vp of shopper robotics, made it clear that the corporate can be increasing its household of house robots, talking in an interview with GeekWire on the firm’s re:MARS convention in Las Vegas. Nevertheless, it wasn’t obvious till now that the corporate would try this partly by way of a serious acquisition.
“Astro is our first shopper house robotic,” Washington mentioned on the time. “It’s not going to be our final.”
With Astro, the corporate has embraced a imaginative and prescient for a multi-purpose house robotic, in a position to conduct safety patrols, dance, or ship objects to particular folks round the home. iRobot has taken a unique strategy with Roomba as a single-purpose gadget.
Based in 1990 by researchers from MIT Synthetic Intelligence Lab, iRobot unveiled the Roomba in 2002. The corporate additionally sells robotic mops, air purifiers, and extra.
iRobot shares have fallen greater than 40% this yr. The corporate’s second quarter income, reported Friday, fell to $255.4 million, down from $365.6 million within the year-ago interval. It blamed declining income on unanticipated order reductions, delays and cancellations from retailers, lower-than-anticipated direct-to-consumer gross sales, and the impression of modifications in overseas trade charges.
The corporate’s GAAP working loss grew to $63.9 million within the quarter, up from a $3 million loss final yr.
iRobot mentioned it plans to put off 140 folks, about 10% of its workforce, as a part of a restructuring.
iRobot has 15.7 million clients (those that have opted-in to its digital communications), up 35% from the second quarter of 2021.
The corporate’s CEO and chairman, Colin Angle, will proceed main iRobot following the acquisition.
Maybe there have been earlier indicators of Amazon’s curiosity in iRobot — CNBC reporter Jordan Novet recalled this Instagram submit from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos again in 2018.
