Amazon buys Roomba maker iRobot for $1.7 billion

The online giant Amazon wants to take over the vacuum cleaner robot manufacturer iRobot. Shareholders and regulators have yet to approve the deal.

billion deal

(dpa) – The world’s largest online retailer Amazon wants to take over the US company iRobot, which is known for its self-propelled Roomba vacuum cleaners. The companies announced Friday that they had agreed a purchase price of $61 per share. This means that iRobot, including its outstanding debts, is valued at around 1.7 billion dollars (1.67 billion euros). Amazon wants to pay the amount in cash. However, shareholders and regulators still have to agree.

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iRobot is a consumer tech company specializing in service robots and home automation. The company was founded in 1990 by three researchers from a computer science laboratory at the top US university, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and went public on the US technology exchange Nasdaq in 2003.

A year earlier, iRobot released the Roomba automatic vacuum cleaner, which also appears as a cat transporter in many viral internet videos.

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