ho doesn’t like a story of a small startup turning out to become a Unicorn? We sure do!
If you haven’t heard about UiPath until now, let me lay out the story of Romania’s biggest tech company which started from an apartment in Bucharest and ended up being listed at the NYSE.
First, let’s see what UiPath does
The company is known for being the world’s leading robotics process automation company (RPA), with hundreds of clients that are benefiting from reducing wasted time on repetitive tasks and automating other processes. Even though the competition is high in this field, UiPath is benefiting from a community of people that are loyal to their software and the company’s values.
Based on Bill Gates's vision of having “a computer in every home”, we saw the Romanian Unicorn’s founder, Daniel Dines, aiming for a similar end result. And that is to have a robot for every person out there.
And that’s not all! The company has complemented its main product by offering developer courses to people. More than 35.000 people have gained developer certification over the last years, contributing enormously to the UiPath community.
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So, how did this success story begin?
The story of UiPath, as stated by Daniel Dines, started small, with a team of 10 people. The team spent its first years figuring out what they want to do and how. Daniel admitted that his initial intentions, which were influenced by the life he saw in Romania back in the 90s, aimed to create some wealth for himself. But that did not help him or the company in the beginning.
At first, we know that the company, which was named DeskOver at the time, was out-sourcing automation assets and software development kits to giants in the tech industry. That was back in the first years of the company, starting from 2005. Reportedly, the company was not doing very well and it lacked purpose.
A few years later, in 2012, the team realized the potential that the market for robots had conferred. So they decided to put all their efforts into building the “world’s best RPA software”.
You might think that business was easy now that there was something to aim for. The problem was that DeskOver had no knowledge of how they could get money from investors and build a product that served a specific need. They focused on using their funds to build high-quality technology that had no end client in sight back in 2013. They couldn’t sell their product as they wished.
Don’t lose hope yet. There is more to come
As the company was going through difficulties and getting over a period of time where closing the business looked like the only viable option, an Indian Company found them through a contest they participated in.
From that moment, the company realized the huge number of people all over the world doing repetitive tasks and the market for which their software was a solution. The business started growing.
The company changed its name in 2015 and became UiPath Inc.
Consequently, they started getting their first big clients. EY was one of the first companies through which UiPath started to gain momentum. Having a close collaboration with the multinational company, the Romanian startup was making a name for itself through great results in different projects.
After getting access to funding they expanded internationally, with offices in countries such as Japan, Australia, and France, and their Headquarters being set in the USA since 2015. The following years went really well for UiPath. In 2018 they checked the Unicorn mark by having a value of over $1bln.
By
Adam Brown
•
November 18, 2024 9:00 PM
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