Amazon acquires Belgian warehouse robot company Cloostermans, which launched a fully automatic parcel transportation robot

CTOnews.com September 10 news, in recent years, Amazon has been expanding its business by acquiring other companies. In July, Amazon acquired primary care provider One Medical. In August, Amazon announced it was buying iRobot, maker of the Roomba robot vacuum cleaner, for $61 a share in all-cash.

Amazon announced today that it has signed an agreement to acquire Cloostermans, a Belgian warehouse robotics company, and more than 200 employees from Cloostermans will join Amazon Robotics to run related operations in Europe. Ian Simpson, Amazon's vice president of global robotics, said: "Amazon's investment in robotics is helping customers and employees build a safer and better workplace, and we're building new things with Cloostermans. "

Cloostermans was founded in 1884 as a repair shop for textile companies and later began manufacturing industrial equipment. In 2019, Cloostermans partnered with Amazon to help Amazon move and stack heavy pallets with shelves and more. In June, Cloostermans launched a package delivery robot called Proteus, Amazon's first fully autonomous mobile robot.

CTOnews.com previously reported that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission has begun reviewing Amazon's $1.7 billion acquisition of vacuum robot maker iRobot to determine whether the deal violates antitrust laws.