UiPath, a software maker valued last year at $7 billion, is getting closer to an initial public offering after helping some of the biggest companies in the U.S. automate routine processes, according to Bloomberg.
Armed with last year’s $568 million funding round that gave the New York-based company its multi-billion dollar valuation, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Daniel Dines sees more growth on the cards. The bourse entry may take place as soon as early next year, depending on market conditions and strategic decisions.
“We just started our growth journey in 2016 and if you look at the average age of a company to do an IPO it’s probably 7 years, so there’s” no reason to hurry, Dines said in an interview from New York. “You have to become a public company at some point to allow your employees to get more liquidity, give them stock options. We’re almost there.”
Founded in Romania in 2005 as DeskOver and renamed in 2015, UiPath’s client base includes the CIA, the U.S. Navy, McDonald’s Corp, Duracell and Swiss Re. The company had $360 million in annual recurring revenue last year and it attracted funding from investors such as Sequoia, CapitalG, Wellington Management, Sands Capital and others.
“Even though UiPath technically can do an IPO, I think they don’t have to do that. They already got a huge amount – $1 billion – in venture funding and don’t have to get their hands tied up in the capital market. The only RPA company that went IPO is Blue Prism, which wanted to issue additional shares to cover its operating losses last year but struggled to get shareholder approvals.”, said Kathy Gao, a BloombergNEF analyst focused on the digital industry
Banking 4.0 – „how was the experience for you”
„So many people are coming here to Bucharest, people that I see and interact on linkedin and now I get the change to meet them in person. It was like being to the Football World Cup but this was the World Cup on linkedin in payments and open banking.”
Many more interesting quotes in the video below:
