Robot vacuum maker Neato Robotics sucks up $12.2M

Vroom, vroom. Neato Robotics has just snagged $12.2 million in fourth round funding for its robot vacuum cleaner.

We all thought the future would be full of robots doing our house work for us. Well in the case of vacuuming, those dreams came true a few years ago with iRobot’s Roomba, one of the first home robot vacuums to gain mass attention. Neato Robotics came along a bit later than the Roomba and introduced a robot vacuum that uses lasers to guide itself.

A competitor to iRobot’s Roomba, Neato Robotics has three robot vacuums with less cute names, the Neato XV-11, Neato XV-12, and a new model, the Neato XV-21. Both models stand out from the Roomba by using lasers to scan a room to detect furniture and find particularly dirty areas. According to the company, the vacuums can map out a room so precisely to avoid walls and furniture, that it’s more efficient than the Roomba, which bumps into obstacles and then turns around.

Neato Robotics has raised a total of $35 million for its technology. Vorwerk Ventures and Noventi Ventures led this series D round, which will be used to grow the company’s business and launch the Neato XV-21 in stores.

Neato Robotics was founded in 2004 and is in based in Newark, Calif., near Silicon Valley.