UiPath, a New York-based company that uses computer-vision to automate repetitive business processes involving software, has raised $30 million to help expand globally, according to DigitalCommerce360.
The move comes as companies increasingly look to artificial intelligence to solve the sorts of routine tasks, such as checking invoices and inputting data from human resource forms into databases, that they once outsourced to low-cost human contractors.
UiPath’s software, unlike most macros, can carry out tasks across any software the business is using. In addition, users can train the tool with a set of rules or steps for analyzing the data it is handling. For instance, it could look up data from an SAP system, check if it meets certain conditions, and then input it into a Salesforce database.
UiPath says that it has 200 customers, including Lufthansa, Generali, Telenor and Dong Energy. It also has partnerships with consulting firms Deloitte and Capgemini, which often recommend its products to their clients.
The market for what is known as robotic process automation software is expected to reach $8.75 billion annually by 2024, up from about $125 million in 2015, tech research firm Grand View Research wrote in an October 2016 report. Grand View estimated that these software solutions are, on average, 60 percent cheaper than using humans to perform the same tasks and cost 30 percent less than using contractors in low-paid countries, such as India.
With the $30 million new investment, UiPath said it will be adding more “cognitive capabilities” to its product, such as natural-language processing and document sorting, so that it can handle both structured and unstructured data.
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