Colin’s obsession with artificial life began in 1989 when he designed Genghis, the inspiration for the Aibo.  His first company, Artificial Creatures, Inc was later renamed iRobot. iRobot has sold over 50M robots worldwide and created the consumer robot industry.

Chris has a PhD in Computer Science from USC and has over 25 years of robotics R&D experience across academia, government, and industry. This includes a 19 year career at iRobot with 5 of those as CTO. Chris is excited to be leading a stellar R&D team at FM&M.

Ira is passionate about creating a world full of robots that make a positive impact. For the last decade, Ira has been leading product management teams developing new robotic products and developing new lines of business, at iRobot, Amazon, and venture-funded startups.

From 2003 to 2009, Herman worked at iRobot and built the first 2M early version Roombas. Later, Herman started his own company, Dragon Innovation, and helped over 50 startups build their products in Asia on time, within budget and in good quality. 

While earning his PhD at Stanford, Morgan built bio-inspired robots that flew, perched, jumped, and climbed. For the last eight years, he has worked at the intersection of technical invention and theatrical excellence as an R&D Imagineer for Disney. His most famous project is a Spiderman robot that flies 65 feet in the air.

Brian brings 20 years of experience developing consumer products and leading teams in creating innovative solutions to challenging problems. He spent 12 years within iRobot’s engineering and advanced development teams and is excited to be joining FM&M as his third series A startup. 

Vanessa brings interdisciplinary expertise in robotics, media production, and human-centered design. Vanessa spent a decade at PBS creating educational TV and digital experiences for iconic brands such as Arthur and Curious George. She later founded iRobot’s design research team, served as head design and research for Hyundai’s self-driving taxi business and, most recently, led UX research at Chewy.

Clement brings extensive experience in both robotics and software development. He spent 14 years at iRobot, where he led the development of the Ava software and the Roomba Fleet RL training platform. Prior to that, he spent 10 years at Macromedia and Adobe, where he contributed to the development of the SDK for Flash Player, one of the most widely used browser plugins in history.