en.Wedoany.com Reported - Colin Angle, co-founder and former CEO of U.S. company iRobot, officially unveiled his new startup Familiar Machines & Magic and its first product—a quadrupedal AI companion robot named Familiar—on May 4, 2026 local time, at The Wall Street Journal's "Future of Everything" Festival in New York. Positioned as an "artificial life form," the product does not perform household functions like cleaning; its design goal is to provide emotional companionship and alleviate loneliness. It is scheduled for consumer release in 2027.

Familiar's appearance blends features of a bear, an owl, and a golden retriever, with a body size comparable to a small-to-medium dog, covered entirely in touch-sensitive synthetic fur. It does not speak human language but communicates with users through movements, postures, and pet-like sounds. In terms of hardware configuration, Familiar has 23 degrees of freedom, enabling rich expressions driven by its head, ears, eyes, and eyebrows. It is equipped with an NVIDIA Jetson Orin chip, and all AI inference is performed locally without relying on a cloud connection, thereby ensuring privacy and low-latency response.

Angle stated at the festival that the next era of the robotics industry is not about dexterous manipulation or humanoid form, but whether machines can build and sustain human connections. He believes that roughly half of the global robotics market share belongs to companion robots. The new company deliberately avoids the humanoid robot path—Angle pointed out that the humanoid form creates unrealistic expectations in users, whereas Familiar only needs to serve as a "supportive presence."

In terms of business model, Familiar will adopt a combined pricing structure of hardware purchase plus a monthly subscription. Angle did not disclose a specific price but stated the cost is comparable to keeping a real pet—without the vet bills. The subscription service is expected to cover ongoing software updates and personalized interaction capabilities. The company's co-founders include former iRobot CTO Chris Jones and former robotics program lead Ira Renfrew, and the core team also brings in talent with backgrounds from institutions like Disney Research, Boston Dynamics, and MIT.

Familiar Machines & Magic was founded in 2024 and is headquartered in Woburn, Massachusetts, USA. It previously filed documents with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to raise $30 million and has completed $15 million in fundraising. Angle spent over three decades at iRobot, leading the development of the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner, which has sold over 50 million units globally. He left iRobot in early 2024 after its acquisition deal with Amazon was blocked by EU antitrust regulators. Angle stated that the team's original vision was to "build the robots we were promised," and that current AI and edge computing power have finally made this goal possible.

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