SAP SE today became the latest enterprise company to jump into the white-hot robotic process automation market, acquiring a significant player called Contextor SAS for an undisclosed price.

SAP said it was buying Contextor primarily to help accelerate the development of its Leonardo platform, which is used by enterprises to create automated machine-learning-based applications and software.

Contextor is one of several emerging players in the robotic process automation market, which is a fast-growing subset of artificial intelligence that involves using software robots to observe workflows in common business applications and then deduce ways to automate repetitive tasks. In Contextor’s case, it has actually carved out a niche within a niche, building RPA products compatible with Microsoft Corp. Remote Desktops, XenDesktop workstations and XenApp application servers.

The easier providers can make it to build automation around these challenges, especially enabling both developers and end-users to build RPA automation, the better for their enterprise, since it allows them to move faster.

SAP said more than 100,000 Contextor bots have been deployed by its customers to automate their business processes. That’s a fairly impressive feat, all the more so given that Contextor’s funding has been limited to a single early-stage round of just $680,000.

Contextor’s funding is dwarfed by other players in the RPA market. Much better-funded startups include Automation Anywhere Inc., which snagged $300 million from SoftBank Group Corp.’s Vision Fund just last week. Prior to that, RPA leader UiPath Inc. closed on an extension of its Series C round, with an additional $40 million that brings the total to $265 million and its valuation to a cool $3 billion.

Contextor might have been smaller than its competitors, but SAP clearly saw the value in it. The plan is to use that technology to simplify interface interactions between its software and third-party applications and environments. In addition, SAP said, it will use Contextor’s software to beef up the automation capabilities of Leonardo, which also has RPA features built-in.

RPA has emerged as a key capability for enterprises because it lets them build new automation processes that are unavailable in existing software-as-a-service platforms, explained Holger Mueller, principal analyst at Constellation Research Inc.

“Along those lines the acquisition by SAP is good one, but now we need to see how fast and well it will integrate the new technology with SAP Leonardo and SAP Cloud Platform,” Mueller said. “As always in these situations, CxOs should look for product roadmaps and early customer adoption.”

Markus Noga, head of machine learning at SAP, said Contextor’s intelligent RPA capabilities would help businesses achieve the high level of automation they need to become more “intelligent” enterprises. “The acquisition is a big step towards orchestrating process automation and will help SAP inject RPA capabilities into our applications, first and foremost into SAP S/4HANA,” Noga said.

SAP’s move comes barely a week after it splashed out a massive $8 billion to acquire Qualtrics Inc., which makes survey software tools used to obtain feedback about software products so they can be optimized for specific use cases.

Photo: SAP