| ▲ | ninjagoo 3 hours ago | |
> While I personally doubt that for $17M one could build such a vacuum robot prototype (for a vacuum cleaner company, investing this amount of money - if it worked - would be a rounding error) The first Roomba prototype from iRobot was two weeks and $10k in 1999 [1], and S. C. Johnson's funding was up to $2M [1]. The public estimate for total pre-launch program cost is $3M. [2] In 2026 $, that's about $19k, $4M and $6M respectively. [1] https://nymag.com/vindicated/2016/11/roombas-long-bumpy-path... | ||