UiPath is the latest cloud software provider to ride pandemic-related growth to a monster valuation.
The company, whose software automates back-office processes and time-consuming tasks for its clients, said on Monday that it raised $225 million at a valuation of $10.2 billion. The round was led by Alkeon Capital Management, a tech-focused hedge fund that's become one of the industry's best performers this year by betting big on e-commerce retailers and work-from-home plays.
UiPath describes its technology as "robotic process automation." The company said its annual recurring revenue has increased to $400 million, up from about $100 million two years ago, with a big boost from large corporations that have been forced to quickly adapt to remote work. Its valuation has climbed almost 50% since August, when it was valued at $7 billion.
"COVID-19 has heightened the critical need of automation to address challenges and create value in days and weeks, not months and years," UiPath CEO Daniel Dines, who co-founded the company in 2005, said in a press release. "We are committed to working harder to help our customers evolve, transform, and succeed fast in the new normal."
A new entry on CNBC's Disruptor 50 list this year, UiPath is now among the most valuable private venture-backed companies in the U.S. Snowflake, a developer of cloud-based technology for storing and analyzing data, was valued at $12.4 billion in a financing round in February led by Salesforce. In another Salesforce-led round, security vendor Tanium was valued at $9 billion last month.Â
On the public markets, a number of cloud-computing stocks are soaring. Zoom, Okta, DocuSign, Datadog and Twilio are among the companies that hit record highs last week. Zoom has surged more than 300% this year, and Twilio is up about 145%.
UiPath says it has automated millions of tasks for over 65% of the Fortune 500. Among its 6,300 customers are Google, Amazon and NASA.
Growth in the market is bringing heightened competition. Microsoft acquired RPA developer Softomotive in May, and IBM announced last week that it's acquiring Brazilian software-bot developer WDG Automation.
Dines said UiPath will use the money to invest more in artificial intelligence and expand its cloud offerings.
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