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Roomba robot vacuums made by iRobot are displayed on a shelf at a Target store in California. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images hide caption
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Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
The U.S. company that put robot vacuums into American homes has hit the skids.
The maker of Roomba, called iRobot, has filed for bankruptcy about two years after its failed merger with Amazon. The company has struggled to keep up with foreign rivals, its hefty debt and new costs of tariffs. The firm is now being taken over by its main manufacturer based in China, assuring owners that its devices will keep running as usual.
Most Roombas are manufactured in Vietnam, so the company faced new import fees under President Trump's trade regime. In its bankruptcy filing, the company says it owes U.S. Customs and Border Protection $3.4 million in unpaid tariffs. iRobot also owes nearly $100 million to the supplier taking over the firm, called Shenzhen Picea Robotics.
MIT researchers founded it
Founded in 1990 by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, iRobot first made devices that helped the U.S. military, searched the Great Pyramid of Giza and tracked an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Then it introduced U.S. home owners to devices that could clean their floors and pools, including the popular Roomba.
But in recent years, iRobot has struggled financially. Smart vacuums from foreign rivals, especially Chinese ones, often came at cheaper prices.
Amazon's offer to buy iRobot for $1.4 billion fell apart last year under scrutiny from European and U.S. competition regulators. iRobot was left with a $200 million loan it had taken to sustain itself during the merger review.
All year, the firm has been losing money. In the latest quarter, iRobot reported its revenue declined by 33% in the U.S. In March, it had begun warning of a possible bankruptcy, citing worries about consumer demand, competitors and tariffs.
As part of the bankruptcy plan, iRobot will go private to become part of Picea. The Chinese firm makes competing household devices under its own brand 3i and on its website lists other brands such as Shark and Anker, which makes Eufy vacuums.
