RPA – UiPath wants to go public, now also Microsoft and Google in business

RPA – UiPath wants to go public, now also Microsoft and Google in business

New York, 3/31/2021

Robotic process automation (RPA) company UiPath has filed for an initial public offering. UiPath, whose fiscal year ended Jan. 31, improved revenue 81% to $607 million. Loss narrowed from $519 million in 2019 to $92 million in 2020.

The IPO filing comes after its $750 million funding round in February at a valuation of $35 billion. The company raised a total of $2B from investors including Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global Management and Tencent Holdings.

Recently, UiPath acquired Cloud Elements, an API integration platform, to offer both user interface and API-based integrations.

What is RPA?

RPAs are business software applications that automate repetitive, manual tasks such as copying data from multiple sources and generic email responses. RPA has become a central part of enterprises‘ digital transformation efforts. According to global market research firm Gartner, 90% of enterprises will deploy some form of RPA by 2022, and Google reports that 67% of small businesses will deploy RPA in the next 12 months.

RPA industry revenue was estimated at $1.4 billion in 2019 and is expected to reach $25.5 billion in 2027.

In May 2020, Microsoft acquired RPA platform Softomotive to strengthen its low-code Power Automate platform. This month, the company made its Automate desktop platform free for Windows 10 users starting March 2. During Microsoft’s recent earnings call, Satya Nadella pointed out that the no-code/low-code Power platform is currently used by 11 million monthly active users – a 95% increase year-over-year.

Google last week announced a partnership with Automation Anywhere to offer an automation platform in its Google Cloud service. SAP acquired RPA platform Signavio in January. ServiceNow announced this month that it is acquiring RPA company Intellibot.