UPDATED 08:00 EDT / NOVEMBER 14 2018

AI

Robotic process automation firm UiPath grabs more funding at $3B valuation

Robotic process automation company UiPath Inc. seems to know a thing or two about getting investors to part with their cash. The company, which recently landed a massive $225 million Series C funding round led by Alphabet Inc.’s CapitalG venture arm, early today said it has closed on an “extension” of that round with an additional $40 million that brings the total to $265 million.

The extended round was funded by strategic investments from IVP, Madrona Venture Group and Meritech Capital, and brings UiPath’s valuation to a cool $3 billion, the company said.

UiPath is widely regarded as one of the leaders in robotic process automation, or RPA. The discipline is a subset of artificial intelligence that uses software robots to observe workflows in common business applications and then deduce ways to automate repetitive tasks.

UiPath builds software robots that monitor users’ individual keystrokes as they interact with applications such as enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management, identifying repetitive patterns and suggests ways to automate them. Eliminating a few keystrokes may seem trivial, but the savings can be enormous when applied to hundreds or thousands of users over long periods of time. Automation also reduces errors and improves speed.

The company has also built up an extensive ecosystem around RPA, offering free training programs, a no-cost community edition and free online forums for developers. Last month it made a bid to expand this ecosystem with the launch of a new marketplace for its artificial intelligence tools and services.

The benefits of RPA are substantial enough that the company counts some of the world’s biggest enterprises among its customers, including Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Thomson Reuters Corp., General Electric Co., the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Equifax Inc.

UiPath offers a few examples of how customers are using its software. It cited the example of a Florida bank that used its tools to process complex transactions across multiple systems and speed up the delivery of home loans in the aftermath of 2017’s Hurricane Irma. In a second example, a European hospital reportedly used automation to cut claims processing costs by 75 percent.

UiPath was also the subject of an analysis by SiliconANGLE’s sister company Wikibon earlier this year, which concluded that it “holds a distinct advantage in the burgeoning RPA market because it employs a freemium go-to-market approach that encourages organic adoption of game-changing developer tools.”

That conclusion seems to have been validated by investors in the extension to UiPath’s most recent funding round. In addition, the company’s own employees are also getting in on the act. Employees were invited to participate at the same share price that investors received in the round, helping nudge the total up a little further.

With its solid financial backing and big customer wins, it’s no surprise to learn that UiPath is growing its business at an extremely rapid pace. The company announced in July it had surpassed $100 million in annual recurring revenue, up from just $1 million just 21 months before. Today, just four months later, the company said its ARR has now crossed the $150 million mark, which it says is thanks to growing its customer base by four times since the end of 2017.

In addition to the new funding, UiPath announced it’s teaming up with one of those investors, Madrona Venture Group, to expand its research and development center in Bellevue, Washington.

“As we build out our Automation First strategy with a focus on applying AI to enhance employee productivity, the AI expertise in the greater Seattle region and at Madrona will be crucial to automating work processes,” Param Kahlon, chief product officer at UiPath, said in a statement. “This region is clearly a leader in advanced AI expertise and we are excited to be here building out a product and R&D focused team.”

UiPath Chief Marketing Officer Bobby Patrick appeared as a guest on SiliconANGLE’s mobile livestreaming studio theCUBE during the company’s UiPathForward Americas event in Miami in October, where he discussed the impact RPA is having on numerous industries:

Image: UiPath

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