Automation Anywhere raises $300 million for RPA technology

The market for Robot Process Automation (RPA) is growing slowly. This also means that more and more companies are jumping on board and investing in it. Today Automation Anywhere announces that it has raised $300 million from a SoftBank Vision Fund investment.

This brings the total value of Automation Anywhere to 2.6 billion dollars. Earlier this year, another investment round took place in which the company’s valuation was 1.8 billion dollars. A total of 550 million dollars has already been raised by the company in investment rounds this year.

Major investments

The news follows a day after one of Automation Anywhere’s biggest competitors, UiPath, raised $265 million in an investment round. In addition, it was recently announced that Kofax would take over an RPA division from Nuance. That’s why it was $400 million.

It is therefore a good year for companies involved in the development of RPA. This latest investment round from Automation Anywhere emphasises this once again. Also some significant investors have been added to the list of Automation Anywhere. In addition to the SoftBank Vision Fund, there are also tech giants such as Apple and Qualcomm who have invested a lot of money in Automation Anywhere.

Criticism on Softbank

However, there was some criticism of this. Part of SoftBank’s funds come from the government of Saudi Arabia. That country is currently under a lot of pressure and there is a lot of criticism of it, because it recently had journalist Jamal Khashoggi murdered in his embassy in Turkey. The question is how ethical it still is to accept money from the Vision Fund.

In an interview, Automation Anywhere CEO and co-founder Mihir Shukla said the murder of Khashoggi was unacceptable. But conversations with SoftBank had been held before, so it had no impact on his company’s decision to cooperate with SoftBank.