The technology company that developed Beam, a teleconference robot that broadcasts a user’s face on a fixed monitor, has filed for bankruptcy protection, saying that the product was slow to catch on and that the business incurred tens of millions of dollars in losses, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Suitable Technologies Inc. is winding down its business and has hired investment banker Stout Risius Ross Advisors LLC “to canvass the market for interested buyers” in its intellectual property, equipment and other remaining assets, the company said yesterday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. Founded in 2011 by Silicon Valley investor and software developer Scott Hassan, the startup received extensive press coverage for its Beam teleconference robots. But the market for the devices “was slow to materialize,” court papers said. Palo Alto, Calif.-based Suitable Technologies said it sold or leased about 7,000 units to customers but suffered operating losses of more than $50 million between 2013 and 2018. Hassan was an early developer of Alphabet Inc.’s Google and has been credited as a key contributor to the search engine. He has been Suitable Technologies’ “sole source of funding” and lent the business almost $92 million through an investment vehicle he controls, court papers say.
