UiPath

UiPath builds software robots that automate repetitive work across enterprise applications, along with tools for process mining, testing and AI-driven automation. Daniel Dines and Marius Tîrcă started the company in Bucharest, Romania in 2005 as DeskOver, and Wikipedia also lists Adrian Dorache, Andra Ciorici and Lavinia Cojocaru as founders. It moved its headquarters to New York in 2017, when it had about 590 employees, and is now based at One Vanderbilt. Dines is chairman and chief executive.

The company bootstrapped for about a decade before raising outside money. In August 2015 it raised $1.6 million from Bek Ventures, Credo Ventures and Seedcamp. Accel led a $30 million round in April 2017. In March 2018 a $153 million round led by Accel, CapitalG and Kleiner Perkins valued UiPath at $1.1 billion. CapitalG and Sequoia Capital led $225 million in September 2018 at $3 billion. Coatue Management led $568 million in April 2019 at $7 billion. A further $225 million followed in July 2020 at $10.2 billion, and $750 million in February 2021 at $35 billion. The IPO prospectus also lists Earlybird, IVP, Meritech Capital Partners and Harmony among pre-IPO holders. Accel held 26.0% of Class A shares before the offering.

UiPath priced its IPO on the New York Stock Exchange on April 21, 2021 at $56.00 per share under the ticker PATH. Including selling stockholders, the offering raised about $1.3 billion, among the largest U.S. software IPOs. The prospectus reported annualized renewal run-rate (ARR) of $580.4 million and revenue of $607.6 million for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021, with dollar-based net retention of 145%. For fiscal 2025 the company reported $1.43 billion in revenue, a net loss of $74 million and 3,868 employees.

UiPath shows how early-stage investors from Central Europe can produce large returns. Credo Ventures and Seedcamp entered at the 2015 seed round and sold some shares in the IPO about six years later, while Earlybird still held more than 5% going into the offering. The late private rounds were priced near the 2021 market peak. Investors who bought in at $35 billion in February 2021 depended on public-market multiples holding, and that risk shows up whenever a company goes public months after a record private round.