China-based robotic process automation startup Laiye, whose product UiBot gained 6,000 enterprise users after launching in January, raises $35M Series B
Rita Liao / TechCrunch :
Context & Ripple Effects
Laiye's raise lands a year after UiPath turned back-office automation bots into one of software's fastest capital stories — a $153M Series B at a $1.1B valuation followed by an expanded Series C — proving enterprise buyers will pay to automate mundane tasks at scale. Laiye is positioning as that category's China answer: its UiBot product launched in January and has already signed 6,000 enterprise users, giving it traction to justify a $35M Series B.
The round matters because RPA is a land-grab market where distribution speed decides who locks in enterprise workflows first, and Laiye now has the war chest to compete on adoption rather than price alone.
First-order effects
- Laiye gets $35M to scale UiBot beyond its initial 6,000-enterprise-user base, accelerating sales and product development against a category leader that raised orders of magnitude more capital.
Second-order effects
- UiPath's mega-rounds force every regional RPA challenger to raise aggressively or cede enterprise accounts; expect Chinese incumbents and cloud vendors to respond either by backing local players like Laiye or bundling competing automation tools.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, RPA consolidates into a small set of well-capitalized platforms per major market — and the follow-on record supports this: Laiye went on to raise a $50M Series C+ and then a $70M tranche that brought total Series C funding to $160M while acquiring Paris-based chatbot service Mindsay (the Mindsay acquisition), extending automation from scripted bots toward conversational interfaces.
The trend: Enterprise task automation is consolidating around heavily funded regional platforms, with China building its own champions alongside Western leaders like UiPath.