Automation software maker UiPath has confidentially filed for an IPO, size and price unknown, for sometime in H1 2021; UiPath was last valued at $10.2B in July
Katie Roof / Bloomberg : Tweets: @katie_roof and @katie_roof Tweets: @katie_roof : UiPath is on the cusp of filing for IPO and has about $500m in ARR https://www.bloomberg.com/... @katie_roof : Shortly after my story, UiPath announced that it filed for IPO https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
UiPath's confidential filing caps a steep private climb: a ~$120M Series B at a $1B-plus valuation in 2018, a $10.2B mark in July, and then a $750M round led by Alkeon Capital and Coatue that pushed the valuation to $35B just weeks before the public filing. The Bloomberg report pegs ARR near $500M, making this one of the largest enterprise-software listings in the pipeline.
The arc that follows validates the timing: the NYSE filing revealed $607M FY2021 revenue, up 81% YoY against a $92.3M net loss, and the deal ultimately priced at $56 per share, above its target range, raising $1.3B at a $29B valuation.
First-order effects
- UiPath's early backers and employees gain a path to liquidity on a company whose valuation tripled from $10.2B to $35B between July and February, while the NYSE listing forces disclosure of the loss-making economics behind the growth.
Second-order effects
- Rival robotic process automation vendors face a newly public benchmark: UiPath's disclosed revenue growth and net loss give buyers and investors a comparable against which every private automation vendor's pricing and burn will be judged.
Third-order effects
- If the above-range pricing holds as a pattern, enterprise-automation companies can reach public markets on high-growth, still-unprofitable financials — encouraging more RPA and workflow-automation startups to skip late-stage private rounds and list directly.
The trend: Enterprise automation is graduating from venture-funded hypergrowth to public-market scrutiny, with UiPath's filing-to-pricing arc setting the template for how RPA vendors price an IPO.