Robotics industry mourns Rethink Robotics shutdown

The Robot Report, sibling publication to Collaborative Robotics Trends, broke the news that Rethink Robotics has shut down. The Boston-based maker of the Baxter and Sawyer collaborative robots, reportedly failed to secure an acquisition deal.

We had heard rumblings for some time that Rethink, founded in 2008 by iRobot co-founder Rodney Brooks and Ann Whitaker, was in trouble. However, it caught many in the robotics industry by surprise.

Below is a snapshot of the reactions that have poured in about Rethink Robotics’ demise. Many in the industry were shocked; some were not, and some are sharing lessons to be learned.

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“We always thought of Sawyer as an interesting robot and planned on supporting it. Sadly, that won’t be the case now. Rethink Robotics helped create the collaborative robot category that is doing immensely well nowadays. This might be one of those cases that show how hard pioneering a category is, especially in hardware. You need to get all the details right very early on, long before market feedback is available.” – Ronnie Vuine, Co-founder and CEO, Micropsi Industries

“We have to be thankful to Rethink for generating a lot of awareness and excitement around collaborative robots. Without their bold vision and PR impact, the industry would not be where it is today.” – Samuel Bouchard, president, Robotiq

“Unfortunately, sometimes being a pioneer comes with added risk. This is a great example of how an early entrant into a market can drive awareness but not succeed due to several factors, the most significant I believe being the point of others taking lessons learned from what Rethink has done and improving upon it and doing so with greater resources.” – John Santagate, research director, service robots, IDC

“Like startups in all sectors, not everything goes smoothly,” said Jeff Burnstein, president of the Association for Advancing Automation (A3) and the Robotic Industries Association (RIA). “Sometimes early products aren’t exactly as good as you would like, sometimes new ideas don’t receive immediate market acceptance, and sometimes other market players gain traction sooner. Some or all of these factors may have impacted Rethink.”

“But in no way does this slow the development or current user excitement about collaborative robots,” he added. “We see strong and growing demand for information on this segment of the market. And while Rethink sadly exits the market, dozens of other companies from around the world are entering the collaborative robot market.”