News Article

Co-founder of iRobot was told 'that's too science-fiction'
Date: Oct 25, 2006
Author: Paul Davidson
Source: USA Today ( click here to go to the source)

Featured firm in this article: iRobot Corporation of Bedford, MA



Helen Greiner's company iRobot produces the iRobot PackBot EOD, which is designed to conduct explosive ordnance disposal, search-and-surveillance and other law enforcement tasks.

Helen Greiner's company iRobot produces the iRobot PackBot EOD, which is designed to conduct explosive ordnance disposal, search-and-surveillance and other law enforcement tasks.

By , USA TODAY
When Helen Greiner saw Star Wars as a child, she was captivated by the 1977 film's legendary robot, R2D2, but disillusioned to learn the droid was actually animated by a tiny man inside.

So Greiner set about making her own robots. Today, her company, iRobot, produces the award-winning Roomba, the first automatic vacuum, as well as a suite of military robots that dispose of bombs and clear caves in war zones such as Afghanistan and Iraq.

But coaxing venture capitalists to shell out millions for a kid's science-fiction fantasy wasn't easy. After earning a master's in computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1990, Greiner founded iRobot with a classmate, Colin Angle, and an MIT professor, Rodney Brooks.

To pay for research, the start-up sold robots to colleges, research labs and government agencies for eight years. By the late 1990s, the company needed venture money as it had designed prototype military robots and was developing automatic cleaning devices.

Although robots were common in factories, none "were going out on their own into unstructured environments," says Greiner, 38, who is company chairman and was responsible for pitching the idea to venture capital firms.

Although the company rounded up $15 million from 1998 to 2002, Greiner had to approach dozens of firms. "I was turned down by most of the major VCs in the country," she says. "One guy said to me, 'That's too science-fiction.' "

Others thought the company, which outsourced production, wasn't big enough to handle a national rollout.

By 2002, Roomba was set to roll off assembly lines, and military sales were heating up. IRobot needed more money to expand distribution channels and make more product, but Greiner didn't have the time to canvass the VC community again. So she attended Springboard Enterprises' coaching sessions and pitched to a few hundred VCs at an MIT forum in Massachusetts.

Springboard President Amy Millman scheduled Greiner last of about 30 presenters, thinking a company that focused on government contracts would flop. Instead, Greiner had the Roomba trundling around the conference center all day, to the delight of investors. By the time Greiner presented, it was already "the hit of the day," Millman says. One of the forum attendees, Trident Capital, invested $9 million.

Last year, iRobot went public, raising about $70 million, and posted a $2.6 million profit on $142 million in sales. About 2 million Roombas, each costing $150 to $350, have been sold. This year, the company launched the Scooba floor-washing robot and the Dirt Dog, which picks up small objects such as nuts and bolts.

Greiner says she wants to do for robots what Apple did for computers in the 1980s. "We want to get them out of research labs and into real people's hands," she says.