A New RPA Unicorn is Born | Sherpas in Blue Shirts
UiPath recently made history by becoming the first Romanian RPA unicorn, thanks to $153 million Series B funding provided by a group of investment firms led by Accel and including CapitalG and Kleiner Perkins. This is the largest round of funding to date in the RPA market, leading to a valuation of over $1bn for UiPath – a unicorn. It is good news for all vendors and buyers as well.
What it means for the RPA market
Other examples of increased investment in the RPA industry include Blue Prism raising £70m ($100m) in funding through new share issuance in January 2018 and WorkFusion raising $35m in Series D financing in January 17.
The fact that investors are willing to put in these huge sums of money is great news for the industry for both buyers and vendors.
What it means for enterprises and RPA
- This is an endorsement of not only UiPath but RPA as whole by the cream of Silicon Valley investment firms
- These and other RPA investors will have completed many rounds of due diligence with the vendors, and in the process put a big lens on each software product
- That RPA is here to stay – that the investors will be doing their best to make sure that the vendors and the platforms perform, to protect their investments
- That there will be significant investment in enhancing the products to keep ahead in this very competitive market
What it means for other RPA vendors
For other RPA vendors, this may seem like a huge competitive threat but it also means that:
- Other investment firms will be looking for similar deals. Consequently, we will see rising interest in other vendors and there are an increasing number. We have conducted in-depth assessments of 18 RPA vendors in the past six months and will be publishing our results very soon:
- We will unveil the Everest Group RPA PEAK MatrixTM at our London Symposium on March 22
- Our full report will be published soon after
- With both Blue Prism and UiPath now valued over $1bn, any RPA vendor thinking of issuing public shares will have a very strong backdrop for the IPO
- It is great for the partners of RPA vendors, particularly technology partners that are likely see more resources thrown at their integrations with the RPA platforms
What could happen next in RPA
Organic or inorganic growth: We now have several RPA companies that are flush with cash; most were already able to operate in a cash-positive manner, so these funds provide for accelerated investments. Some have had the money for longer than others and have invested in organic growth, e.g., opening new offices and hiring more staff. This is a path that UiPath, Blue Prism and WorkFusion have taken already. Expect more announcements from some of them on this front. For UiPath, given that CapitalG is an investor, we expect to see much more integration with Google AI/ML technology.
Then there is the inorganic growth option – to acquire complementary capabilities. This could be cognitive or other technologies to enhance the core RPA capabilities or growing their professional services to accelerate adoption/training. We believe this is highly likely.
