The news that the maker of the Roomba robot vacuum, iRobot, filed for bankruptcy this week came as no surprise. Its CEO, Gary Cohen, had been warning investors all year that the company could run out of cash unless a buyer was found. When its last potential deal fell through, bankruptcy became inevitable. But Cohen says this is not the end for iRobot; instead, he sees it as the beginning of a new chapter for the company, one he hopes will turn it back into a competitive market leader and potentially take it into new, greener territory.
Cohen was brought on in early 2024 to turn the company around when cofounder and CEO Colin Angle stepped down following a failed Amazon acquisition. In an interview with The Verge this week, Cohen insisted that bankruptcy is actually good for iRobot and for its customers. “This is good news for us. It keeps us alive for the long term,” he says. “It keeps 500 employees employed, and it keeps a global brand, based in Boston, viable,” he says. “We just signed a long-term lease on our headquarters as a result of this and are keeping all of the engineers, R&D, and software development in this building.”
“iRobot is here to stay. We don’t expect any disruptions.”
While it’s not good news for shareholders of the public company that will now go private, or for the many iRobot employees laid off over the last three years, it does give the millions of people who own a Roomba some hope. “It’s business as usual,” says Cohen. “iRobot is here to stay. We don’t expect any disruptions.”
As part of the pre packaged bankruptcy, which may be completed as soon as next month, according to Cohen, iRobot will be purchased by its contract manufacturer, China-based Picea Robotics, which also recently became its main creditor. The move means that while iRobot will continue to operate as before, it will be wholly owned by Picea.
As its primary contract manufacturer since just before the collapse of the Amazon sale, Cohen credits Picea with helping the company pivot from its prior path into a more consumer-focused brand.
Thanks to Picea, iRobot was able to launch eight new robots, its largest line up ever, in March of this year. “We finally gave people what they wanted, including lidar navigation and the combo mopping products,” Cohen says. “Working with Picea, we closed the four-year tech gap we had in one year. We haven’t surpassed the competition, but we have closed the gap, and we are on the way to launching our next-gen products in 2026.”
That first wave of new products was largely underwhelming. Unsurprisingly, since Picea makes robot vacuums for several companies, they resemble many other midrange Chinese brands on the market.
But there are some innovative features, including an onboard dust-compacting bin that eliminates the need for an auto-empty dock, and a retracting cover for the new roller mop iRobot added to its top model. However, both features were developed by Picea. I asked Cohen how much of the new line was actually developed by iRobot, and he said it’s “been a partnership.”
“We finally gave people what they wanted, including lidar navigation and the combo mopping products.”
The key to the turnaround, he says, was speed. “By partnering with Picea we can be as fast and nimble [as our Chinese competitors]” he says. iRobot’s culture of developing the tech first, then figuring out how to market it, had slowed it down in the era of the Chinese fast follower. Cohen also confirmed what Angle said in my interview with him, that the drawn-out, failed Amazon acquisition hurt innovation. “Under the Amazon deal, they came up with some agreement not to make changes — innovation stopped,” he says.
“But frankly, consumers weren’t happy with the product lines we had.” This stemmed from issues before Amazon, he said, including a combination of strategic choices and execution. “We were late to the party on combos, we were late on multifunction docks … we didn’t even have one in the market until the end of last year. And it wasn’t a great product.”
The biggest issue, Cohen says, was sticking with vSLAM navigation rather than switching to lidar. That was something he resolved immediately. “Customers want to map their homes in 20 minutes, not two hours,” he says. However, Angle maintains it was the wrong move for the company.
“Customers want to map their homes in 20 minutes, not two hours.”
“Colin was a visionary, and he felt that his way of doing camera-based technology was the way to go,” says Cohen. “And I totally agree with that,” pointing out the higher-end new Roombas also use cameras. “The issue is we had 200 software engineers developing machine learning to make these products work with camera-based navigation. And we couldn’t execute against it. We could not deliver his vision into the marketplace. I’ve got hundreds of dead robotic lawnmowers in this building, because we couldn’t commercialize that vision.”
Cohen, whose background is in consumer products, not robotics, says he hopes that his legacy at the company will be to shift its culture from tech-first to consumer-led and to commercialize these ideas. The initial products may feel hasty because they clearly were. But to Cohen, it was a foot in the door. Now they can build on it.
This “if you can’t beat them, join them” approach may work, but it risks turning the brand into just one of many in a sea of unremarkable products. Angle’s vision may have been hard to execute, but it’s hard not to feel disappointed if that vision has been lost. It’s what helped create this entire product category.
While Picea clearly led the way in this first round of reinvention, Cohen hinted that there will be more of iRobot’s DNA in future products. “When I got here, the cupboard for new products was really impressive. There isn’t one thing that Colin didn’t think of,” he says. “If I can get them to market, they will wow and delight people. We are not short of ideas. We’ve got some of the smartest software engineers, and I want to harness their energy into a competitive product.”
But of course, it may no longer be up to Cohen. When asked if he would stay on, he said they are still working out the C-Suite. Requests for comment from Picea were politely deferred to “official announcements.”
Angle’s vision may have been hard to execute, but it’s hard not to feel disappointed if that vision has been lost.
If iRobot can execute Cohen’s vision, where does he see the company in five years? “That’s a tough one — given this environment, especially with all the humanoid robots coming, which also haven’t been commercialized, by the way.
“I think we’ve got to take one step at a time. We have the desire and capability to grow beyond RVCs,” he says. “We think the home is a good place to start, and we think the outside of the house is another place. I’m not going to get into specific products, but you can figure them all out.” Perhaps iRobot’s Terra robot lawnmower will live to see another day.
The idea that the inventor and early market leader of the modern robot vacuum cleaner could potentially resurrect itself and overtake the now firmly entrenched competition seems like a moonshot. However, it does have two cards to play: a powerful, recognizable brand name and an innovative ODM that can inject some of its competitors’ drive. If this bankruptcy does turn into a marriage of American robotics innovation and Chinese efficiency, that moonshot isn’t inconceivable. But that’s a very big “If.”
