While human-looking robots are being developed, most “robots” don’t have a body at all. These software bots can initiate a chat on a company’s website or process invoices for human resources (HR). UiPath works on this type of robotic process automation (RPA) and announced today that it has raised a whopping $153 million to further its growth. Another publication incorrectly reported last Friday that the startup had raised around $120 million.
Founded in 2005 in Bucharest, Romania, UiPath launched its RPA platform in 2015 and is now headquartered in New York City. The startup says it has doubled its workforce in the last 120 days to nearly 600 employees across 14 countries, and has grown its enterprise customer base to more than 700. Clients include Allianz, Exxon, GE, HP, Walmart, and VMWare.
“We also count government agencies, including NASA, GSA, and USPS in the U.S.,” wrote UiPath cofounder and CEO Daniel Dines, in an email to VentureBeat.
This aggressive expansion has attracted top-tier investors, including Accel, which led UiPath’s Series A round last year.
June 5th: The AI Audit in NYC
Join us next week in NYC to engage with top executive leaders, delving into strategies for auditing AI models to ensure fairness, optimal performance, and ethical compliance across diverse organizations. Secure your attendance for this exclusive invite-only event.
“We chose to double down on this company for numerous reasons,” wrote Accel partner Rich Wong, in an email to VentureBeat. “[Chiefly], it’s one of the fastest-growing enterprise categories that we’ve ever seen. While Accel has long invested globally, this is also the first Romanian investment that we’ve done. Daniel and his team embody the ethos that category-defining leaders can come from anywhere.”
New investors CapitalG and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers joined Accel and existing investors Earlybird’s Digital East Fund, Credo Ventures, and Seedcamp in this round.
UiPath’s software bots, or “digital workers,” can execute repetitive tasks like reporting, auditing, monitoring, scheduling, workload management, and asset management. The idea is to free up human employees so they can spend their time on more creative and complex tasks.
The startup charges customers who use the UiPath platform to design software bots an annual subscription fee. Enterprises can then add additional robots to manage new automated processes.
Competitors in the RPA space include WorkFusion, Kryon Systems, and Pega’s Robotic Automation.
To date, UiPath has raised a total of $183 million. It plans to use the fresh injection of capital to further expand globally and hire more employees. It will also accelerate the startup’s product roadmap, “particularly innovations that integrate machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms within customers’ digital business operations,” wrote Dines.
