Important Strategic Milestone to Diversify Product Portfolio with Premium, Connected Air Purifiers for a Cleaner and Healthier Home
iRobot Corp. (NASDAQ: IRBT), a leader in consumer robots, today announced that it has acquired privately-held Aeris Cleantec AG, a fast-growing provider of premium air purifiers headquartered in Cham, Zug Switzerland. The acquisition supports iRobot’s vision of building the world’s most thoughtful robotics and developing intelligent home innovations that make life better.
The global residential air purifier market is expected to enjoy solid growth, expanding from $3.4 billion in 2020 to over $6.7 billion in 2027, according to Grand View Research.1 iRobot sees exciting opportunities to accelerate consumer adoption of the Aeris aair brand of premium air purifiers by leveraging its extensive marketing capabilities, global network of retail partners and distributors, and installed base of connected customers around the world. Once fully integrated into the company’s go-to-market and innovation strategy, iRobot plans to add new features and functionality to Aeris product offerings, integrating them with its existing ecosystem of connected home robots. In the future, iRobot will leverage its Genius™ Home Intelligence platform to offer consumers more personalized and intuitive ways to clean the air in their homes, maintain their floors and create a healthier environment.
Founded in 2015, Aeris Cleantec designs and sells a range of high-quality, high-performance air purifiers that consumers around the world rely upon to improve overall air quality in their homes. Using HEPA filtration,2 state-of-the-art engineering, intelligence and sophisticated design, Aeris’ aair air purifiers are designed to improve overall quality by quietly removing a wide range of pollutants, including allergens, smoke, odors and pet dander. With the Aeris mobile app, users can activate their air purifier, control the fan speed, compare indoor and outdoor air quality, and increasingly leverage other intelligent technologies to train the device to operate according to their individual needs.
“Today’s acquisition of Aeris is an important step in iRobot’s strategy to expand our total addressable market and diversify our product portfolio in ways that will provide consumers with new ways to keep their homes cleaner and healthier,” said Colin Angle, chairman and CEO of iRobot. “We are enthusiastic about the growth potential for Aeris’ products, especially as the pandemic has raised greater consumer awareness of the value of maintaining a cleaner, healthier home. We are also excited about the potential to leverage our Genius Home Intelligence platform and existing ecosystem of home robots to bring the iRobot experience to air purification.”
“With air quality negatively impacting people’s lives worldwide, and the recent COVID-19 pandemic forcing them to pay more attention to the air they breathe at home, consumers are increasingly looking for new ways to stay healthier indoors,” said Pierre Bi, CEO of Aeris. “Regardless of where you live, breathing air that is free from allergens, pollen, smoke, pet dander, and other pollutants is extremely important. We are excited to be joining with iRobot to offer smarter, more effective air purification products to consumers worldwide.”
Aeris’ founders Pierre Bi, CEO, and Constantin Overlack, COO, will join iRobot and lead air purification product operations, including engineering, product management and design. Aeris currently employs over 30 people, all of whom are expected to join iRobot. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Although iRobot anticipates that the Aeris business will be modestly dilutive to iRobot’s full-year 2022 earnings, the company expects that accelerated revenue growth during the second half of 2022 will deliver improved operating profitability and that this transaction will be accretive to the company’s full-year 2023 earnings. The company expects to provide additional information about the Aeris products and the anticipated financial impact from this product line over the coming years during the company’s Investor Day on December 9, 2021.
