Sources: Microsoft is in talks to buy UK-based robotic process automation software startup Softomotive
Context & Ripple Effects
This report lands mid-consolidation in the UK robotic process automation market. A year and a half earlier, Softomotive had raised a $25M Series A off a client base of more than 7,000 companies including Intel and IBM, while rival Blue Prism had already paid up to $100M for Thoughtonomy's AI-based automation platform — the sector's template for tacking intelligence onto legacy workflow bots.
Microsoft's interest matters because it would fold an independent RPA vendor directly into Power Automate rather than leave it selling alongside Microsoft's platform. The talks did close: weeks later Microsoft confirmed it had acquired Softomotive and merged its tools into Power Automate, and by late 2021 the last major independent, Blue Prism, exited public markets entirely via Vista Equity Partners' roughly £1.1B buyout.
First-order effects
- Softomotive's 7,000-plus customers — Intel and IBM among them — move from buying a standalone product to evaluating whether their automation stack should live inside Microsoft's Power Automate.
- Microsoft gains a Windows-native task automation toolset at what proved an undisclosed price, plugging a gap against dedicated RPA vendors without building it in-house.
Second-order effects
- Blue Prism and other pure-play RPA vendors lose the neutral-vendor position: when the dominant productivity-suite owner owns an RPA tool, enterprise buyers weigh bundling discounts against best-of-breed pricing.
- The exit path narrows for remaining independents — Blue Prism's own Thoughtonomy purchase showed consolidation was already underway, and its later sale to private equity confirmed that standing alone against platform owners was not sustainable.
Third-order effects
- RPA stops being a standalone software category and becomes a feature line inside cloud platforms' low-code and automation suites, with the surviving specialists either absorbed or taken private.
- UK-built enterprise software startups increasingly exit to US platform acquirers rather than list independently, leaving London as a talent-and-product source rather than a headquarters for scaled automation vendors.
The trend: Robotic process automation is being consolidated from a standalone vendor category into the automation suites of cloud platform owners, with Microsoft's Power Automate absorbing one of the last sizable UK independents.