When iRobot officially filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last Sunday, the event symbolized far more than a financial setback—it represented the closing of a monumental chapter in the history of American robotics. This was the end of an era for one of the country’s most admired and recognizable technology pioneers, the creator of the Roomba, a device that had become almost synonymous with household automation. Since its public debut in 2002, iRobot had managed to sell more than fifty million autonomous machines, consistently navigating a landscape of technological hurdles, market volatility, and near-catastrophic moments for thirty-five resilient years. Yet, after weathering countless storms, the company ultimately succumbed to a form of adversity that its founder, Colin Angle, would later describe as both avoidable and deeply disheartening: regulatory resistance.
The collapse of iRobot followed directly from Amazon’s January 2024 decision to terminate its proposed $1.7 billion acquisition of the company after a protracted eighteen-month investigation by both the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the European Commission. The prolonged scrutiny from these authorities proved fatal for a deal that Angle believed could have reinvigorated innovation and consumer choice. In a particularly candid discussion, he reflected on this deeply frustrating experience, interpreting it as a cautionary tale for entrepreneurs and investors alike. Beyond his disappointment, however, he expressed unwavering determination to continue his lifelong mission in the field of consumer robotics through a new, undisclosed venture.
This interview, thoughtfully condensed for brevity and readability, begins with a discussion about the regulatory decisions that halted the acquisition. When asked why he had referred to the bankruptcy as both avoidable and tragic for consumers, Angle explained that the affair underscored a critical misunderstanding of the respective roles of the FTC and European regulators. Their intended purpose—preventing monopolies and safeguarding both consumer choice and the vitality of innovation—had, in his view, been undermined by the very manner in which the iRobot case was handled. According to him, iRobot and Amazon had sought a partnership designed to expand innovation and consumer access, not to stifle it.
At the time, iRobot’s market share was in visible decline, particularly in Europe, where it held only around twelve percent of the market. The leading competitor in that region had entered the field a mere three years earlier, providing clear evidence of a dynamic, vibrant, and competitive environment. In the United States, although iRobot’s share remained somewhat stronger, it too was shrinking as new entrants brought fresh concepts and lower-cost alternatives. Given such conditions, Angle argued, the merger should have warranted only a brief, straightforward review lasting no more than a few weeks. Instead, the process dragged on for a year and a half, exerting suffocating pressure on the company’s operations and ultimately collapsing the transaction entirely.
When asked about the nature of this eighteen-month ordeal, Angle described an almost indescribable expenditure of resources—both financial and human. He estimated that iRobot had produced and delivered well over one hundred thousand supporting documents. The company committed a meaningful fraction of its discretionary profit toward meeting the increasingly complex compliance requirements of the regulators. Amazon, in turn, devoted exponentially greater sums to the process, assembling an extensive network of internal staff, outside legal teams, and economists to advocate for the deal. The work became a relentless daily burden, consuming every available hour for a year and a half as the two firms sought to demonstrate—with logic, data, and transparency—that the acquisition would not create a monopoly.
Angle recounted one particularly revealing moment from his deposition at the FTC offices: as he walked the agency’s halls, he noticed that some examiners had posted lists of previously blocked deals on their doors as if they were trophies. To him, this practice was profoundly disillusioning. As an entrepreneur who had built iRobot quite literally from his living room, enduring years of financial uncertainty and barely making payroll, seeing a regulatory agency celebrate the halting of mergers as victories felt contrary to its stated mission of protecting consumers and advancing the economy. He remarked that mergers and acquisitions, far from threatening innovation, often serve as its engine—creating liquidity for investors, fostering risk-taking, and enabling smaller innovators to integrate within larger ecosystems capable of scaling their ideas.
His testimony before regulators had not been met with the empathy or understanding he had hoped for. Expecting partnership or at least shared excitement about the potential of the deal, he instead encountered an atmosphere of suspicion. The prevailing tone, he recalled, was not one of curiosity but of challenge: why should this merger be allowed? For Angle, the answer was obvious—because it would benefit consumers by accelerating innovation, broadening choice, and solidifying the United States’ leadership in a field increasingly dominated by global competition.
Reflecting on the wider implications, Angle warned that such regulatory resistance could deter entrepreneurship. In the start-up ecosystem, acquisition is often a primary exit strategy that validates early innovation and fuels reinvestment into new ventures. If the risk of regulatory obstruction increases, founders and venture capitalists alike may think twice before committing capital or effort to long-term, high-risk projects. He emphasized that while it is difficult to quantify precisely how many businesses or acquisitions will fail to materialize as a result of such chilling precedents, the trend is unmistakably negative. The loss is not merely financial but cultural, affecting the nation’s capacity for invention and its willingness to reward those who dare to innovate. Regulatory balance, he stressed, is vital—too little oversight invites abuse, but too much interference suppresses creativity and weakens the economic ecosystem that supports progress.
When asked to recount iRobot’s early history, Angle spoke nostalgically about the company’s first dozen years. It began as a small group of academics and engineers in a laboratory, animated by a shared sense of frustration at the unfulfilled promises of robotics. Inspired by visionary scientist Rod Brooks, one of iRobot’s co-founders and a professor known for embedding artificial intelligence in cost-effective machines, the young team set out with an ambitious mission—to create technology that was practical, intelligent, and transformative. Their early business plan, half earnest and half audacious, even included a private mission to the moon financed by selling film rights. Although that specific endeavor never came to fruition, the technologies developed along the way contributed to historic achievements, from participation in NASA’s Mars Pathfinder mission—where Angle’s name remains etched on hardware still present on Mars—to the development of search and mission robots for real-world crises such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
iRobot’s PackBot platform was notably deployed by the U.S. military in Afghanistan, pioneering the use of unmanned robots in defusing improvised explosive devices and saving countless lives. Later, during Japan’s Fukushima disaster, iRobot donated half a million dollars’ worth of robots and dispatched a team to train local engineers. Those machines became the first to enter the compromised reactors, mapping radiation and identifying pathways safe enough for human intervention. The company’s technologies thus transcended commercial value—they demonstrated robotics’ profound capacity to protect life and serve humanity.
The iconic Roomba, however, would not emerge until year twelve of the company’s journey. The concept was initially presented by a team that had been experimenting with robotic toys. One engineer proposed that the technology had finally matured to the point where a practical floor-cleaning robot could be built. With minimal initial funding—just $15,000 and a two-week prototype deadline—the team constructed an early version of the device that exceeded expectations. With these promising results, they managed to secure enough internal support to manufacture ten thousand units.
The product launch, though modestly funded and without a marketing budget, captured the imagination of journalists and consumers alike. The media fascination transformed Roomba from a novelty into a sensation, and within three months, seventy thousand units had been sold. Yet success nearly led to disaster the following year. Overwhelmed by initial demand, the company scaled up production to 300,000 units and invested in advertising that fell flat. After the peak shopping season, inventory piled up, threatening iRobot’s survival again. Then, serendipity struck—a major television advertisement from Pepsi featuring comedian Dave Chappelle and an incidental cameo by a Roomba generated a viral response. Within days, those unsold robots flew off the shelves, and the company’s fate reversed overnight. Moments like these, Angle recalled, embodied the unpredictable nature of entrepreneurship, where persistence and luck often intertwine.
In later years, competition intensified, particularly from Chinese manufacturers such as Roborock and Ecovacs, which introduced lidar-based navigation earlier than iRobot. Angle acknowledged these competitors’ innovations but explained that under his leadership, iRobot had deliberately chosen to rely on vision-based navigation systems. He viewed laser mapping as a technological dead end, noting that vision systems—akin to those used in autonomous vehicles—offered a more adaptable foundation for future learning and environmental understanding. The company’s long-term vision extended well beyond vacuum cleaning: it sought to build intelligent devices capable of genuine spatial comprehension, a prerequisite for meaningful integration in the connected home. Market decisions occasionally went against iRobot’s expectations, such as consumer preference for two-in-one cleaning robots, but Angle maintained that these missteps were part of innovation’s natural process of adaptation.
Reflecting on decades of experience, he advised budding robotics entrepreneurs to ground their creativity in pragmatic understanding. Passion for technology, he cautioned, can easily blind inventors to market realities. The true challenge is to create machines that deliver value exceeding their cost and to treat robotics not as an end in itself, but as a versatile toolkit for solving tangible problems. Successful robotics innovation lies not in the allure of anthropomorphism but in identifying real-world needs and designing purposeful, efficient solutions to meet them.
Finally, Angle hinted at his latest endeavor—a new, stealth-mode company once again focused on consumer robotics but aiming to bring a greater degree of emotional intelligence into machines. Although not aspiring to human-level awareness, he imagines robots capable of maintaining meaningful interactions over time, supporting functions tied to wellness and quality of life. For him, this represents less a reinvention than a continuation of the mission he began decades ago: to build the kind of robots humanity was once promised but has yet to fully realize. That enduring ambition, even in the face of loss and regulatory barriers, continues to drive him forward with optimism and renewed purpose.
Sourse: https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/20/it-felt-so-wrong-colin-angle-on-irobot-the-ftc-and-the-amazon-deal-that-never-was/
