Key Apple Designer from Ive's Team Lands at Home Robotics Startup

Rico Zorkendorfer, among several members of Apple Inc.’s industrial design team to leave the company in recent months, has joined Bumblebee Spaces, a startup seeking to merge robotics with home furnishings.

Zorkendorfer left Apple in April and is now leading design at the San Francisco-based startup that is combining smart home products and robotics, Sankarshan Murthy, the company’s co-founder and chief executive officer, told Bloomberg News. Bumblebee Spaces has developed beds, closets and storage containers attached to robot actuators that allow the furnishings to be raised into ceilings, increasing the amount of space in an apartment. For example, a room can be an open space living room during the day with a bed that comes down from the ceiling at night.