UiPath Inc. beat expectations on earnings and revenue in its latest financial results, doubled its profitability and offered solid guidance for the current quarter and full year, but it still wasn’t enough to satisfy investors.

Despite the strong results, its stock fell more than 4% in late trading today.

The company reported fourth-quarter earnings before certain costs such as stock compensation of 30 cents per share, easily beating Wall Street’s target of 25 cents per share. Revenue for the period rose 14% from a year earlier to $481.1 million, well ahead of the analysts’ $464.9 million consensus estimate.

The results were impressive, and they had a real positive impact on the company’s bottom line. UiPath reported net income of $104.5 million in the quarter, rising from a profit of just $51.8 million in the year-ago period.

The company also reported annual recurring revenue of $1.853 billion at the end of the quarter, up 11% from the same period last year. It delivered net new ARR of $70 million.

UiPath made its name as a pioneer of robotic process automation, selling tools that can help businesses to lower costs and reduce operational errors by automating repetitive tasks such as data entry. This technology is powered by artificial intelligence models that study how employees perform common tasks, such as data entry, so they can replicate that work with no mistakes.

Some investors have become concerned that UiPath could become a victim of the so-called “SaaSpocalypse” amid rising fears that more powerful large language models are about to cause severe disruption to established software companies. The narrative has switched from the perspective that AI will benefit most technology firms to the idea that there are going to be clear winners and losers. It’s feared that legacy software companies will be among the biggest losers, because AI can replace software user interfaces and even create its own software.

But it’s not clear if UiPath needs to be worried, for its roots in AI also mean it could be in a position to capitalize on the trend for all things automation. The company has recently pivoted to focus on more sophisticated AI agents of its own. It’s busy developing a fleet of AI agents that can act as digital laborers, leveraging LLMs to complete complex tasks on behalf of workers with minimal supervision. It’s especially focused on agentic orchestration, building the tools enterprises need to manage and secure those digital laborers.

Chief Executive Daniel Dines (pictured) hailed the company’s latest results, saying its growth is evidence that enterprises increasingly need a platform that’s able to execute complex processes reliably at scale, with strong governance. “By bringing deterministic automation, agentic AI and enterprise-grade orchestration together on a single platform, UiPath provides the execution layer enterprises trust to run mission-critical processes in the agentic era,” he said.

For the current quarter, UiPath is forecasting revenue of between $395 million and $400 million, which compares favorably with the Street’s target of $393.4 million. For the full year, the company is forecasting sales in a range of $1.754 billion to $1.759 billion, ahead of the $1.74 billion consensus estimate.

Today’s after-hours decline means that UiPath’s stock is now down more than 24% in the year to date, trailing the broader S&P 500 index, which has slid just over 1% so far this year.

Photo: SiliconANGLE