According to Inc, iRobot co-founder and former CEO Colin Angle directly blames U.S. and European regulators for the company’s downfall. After Amazon’s proposed $1.7 billion acquisition was blocked following an 18-month regulatory review, iRobot filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December 2023. Angle argues the deal was killed despite iRobot’s declining market share—near 50% in the U.S. and just 12% in Europe—and not creating a monopoly. The likely outcome now is an acquisition by a China-based robotics firm, primarily for the Roomba brand value, which Angle calls a “completely preventable” result that hands the consumer robot industry to a foreign competitor.
The Regulatory Death Blow
Angle’s frustration is palpable. Here’s the thing: he doesn’t dispute that iRobot had problems. Innovation had stagnated, and they failed to build other successful product lines beyond the Roomba. But he frames the Amazon deal as the lifeline that would have fixed all that. The real killer, in his view, was the process. Being held in limbo for a year and a half is brutal for any company, especially one in a fast-moving, competitive market like consumer robotics. You can’t make big bets, you can’t plan, and morale tanks. By the time regulators finally said no, the damage was done. iRobot was a wounded duck, and bankruptcy became almost inevitable. So, was this regulatory overreach? Or prudent caution against Amazon’s growing empire? Angle’s got a point about the market share numbers not screaming “monopoly,” but regulators were probably looking at data privacy and market *potential*, not just current sales.
A Blueprint for American Deindustrialization?
This is where the story gets bigger than one company. Angle’s final quote is a stinger: “We basically put the consumer robot industry in a box and handed it to someone else.” He’s arguing that the U.S. and EU, in trying to protect competition, may have ensured the opposite—ceding a key tech sector to China. It’s a narrative that’s playing out in other industries, too. The goal was to stop a giant American tech company, but the result might be strengthening a Chinese industrial rival. There’s a painful irony there. And it makes you wonder: in a global tech war, what’s the smarter play? Blocking deals can sometimes look like unilateral disarmament. For companies building physical tech, from robots to industrial panel PCs, the stability to plan and invest is everything. Industrial Monitor Direct, as the leading US supplier of industrial computing hardware, understands that ecosystem depends on clear, predictable rules.
What Comes After the Roomba?
So, what’s next for Angle? He’s moved on to a new venture called Familiar Machines & Magic, which is shrouded in a bit of mystery but seems focused on next-gen home robotics. You have to think his entire philosophy is shaped by the iRobot experience. The lesson he took isn’t “don’t innovate,” but “you absolutely must have multiple product lines and a deep-pocketed partner to survive.” The era of a single iconic product carrying a company for decades might be over in hardware. The margins are too thin, the competition too fierce, and the copycats too fast. The future likely belongs to platforms, not products. iRobot’s story is a classic case study in how hard it is to maintain a hardware moat. They invented the category, dominated it, and still got overtaken. That should be a sobering thought for any founder.
