Robotic process automation provider UiPath Inc. today announced that it has closed $750 million in new funding at a post-money valuation of $35 billion, more than three times what it was worth after its previous financing round last July.

Alkeon Capital and Coatue led this latest round. They were joined by returning investors Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, IVP, Sequoia, Tiger Global and T. Rowe Price Associates.

Led by Chief Executive Daniel Dines (pictured), UiPath provides a robotic process automation, or RPA, platform that enables companies to automate repetitive business tasks. UiPath’s platform works by using machine learning to observe how employees perform a given task in a business application. It then creates a software “robot” that can replicate every step involved in the workflow, down to individual clicks, without the need for human input.

UiPath’s platform is used in a wide variety of departments and verticals. Banks rely on it to automate tasks such as transferring financial information from documents and emails to their systems of record, while manufacturers can use the platform to speed up the manual tasks involved in procuring raw materials. UiPath said last July that, across all the different segments where it operates, it had annual recurring revenues of more than $400 million.

That was up from more than $200 million in April 2019. 

“Automation, along with cloud, AI and containers are the four areas of tech investment that show the most spending momentum with customers. UiPath is at the heart of these trends,” said Dave Vellante, chief analyst at SiliconANGLE sister market research firm Wikibon.

“It’s also in a knife fight with Automation Anywhere to break out from the software pack and execute on a broader automation agenda,” Vellante added. Automation Anywhere Inc. is another heavily funded player in the RPA market that received a $6.8 billion valuation after its most recent financing round.

UiPath’s latest funding intensify competition in what is already a heavily contested market. “Recent low-code and RPA introductions from Microsoft, SAP and Salesforce and successful results from publicly traded workflow providers like ServiceNow and the latest UiPath funding round demonstrate the importance of digital automation to the future of business,” commented Dustin Grosse, the chief marketing and strategy officer at Nintex, a Bellevue, Wash.-based maker of automation software. 

Though UiPath alone already generates north of $400 million in annual revenues, there are even bigger opportunities ahead. “We’ve pegged the RPA tools market TAM in the tens of billions and the broader automation market over $100 billion,” Vellante said. “Bottom line, it’s a huge market, growing rapidly and UiPath is leading into a frothy market that is benefiting from government stimulus, a rebounding economy and a new digital era.”

In preparation for its next phase of growth, UiPath has reportedly already started laying the groundwork for an eventual initial public offering. Bloomberg reported in December that the company had confidentially filed IPO paperwork and could list its shares as early as in the first half of 2021.

Photo: SiliconANGLE