Amazon (Seattle) has agreed to acquire iRobot (Bedford, MA), maker of the Roomba series of automated vacuum cleaners.
Amazon will pay $61 per share for the company in an all-cash transaction valued at $1.7 billion, including iRobot’s net debt. Colin Angle will remain CEO of iRobot upon the deal’s closing.
The acquisition comes less than three weeks after Amazon agreed to buy One Medical for $3.9 billion. In a research note cited by Marketwatch, D.A. Davidson analyst Tom Forte speculated that the short timespan between the deals could indicate Amazon will be more assertive on the M&A front under the leadership of CEO Andy Jassy.
“While we may be placing too much emphasis on the short distance between the two latest M&A [merger and acquisition] announcements (less than three weeks between One Medical and iRobot), it does suggest to us that CEO Andy Jassy may be more willing to engage in M&A than his predecessor Founder/CEO Jeff Bezos,” Forte wrote in the research note. “In Mr. Jassy’s defense, we believe he may have to given Amazon’s current size and how it needs a lot more revenue to move the needle than it did when the company was smaller, even 10 years ago.”