UiPath to use new funds to double headcount in India

BENGALURU: Romanian robotic process automation (RPA) company UiPath plans to use its latest funding to double its headcount in India and open two more offices in the country, a senior executive said in an interview.

Earlier this month, the company had announced that it had raised $153 million in a series-B funding round from investors including Google’s venture capital arm Capital G, Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers and previous investors Accel, Credo Ventures and Seedcamp. With this funding round, UiPath became the first RPA firm to be valued at over $1 billion.

“India is strategic for UiPath. We currently have about 100 employees here. We plan to double that headcount. We have an office in Bengaluru. We are looking to open offices in Mumbai and in the NCR (National Capital Region),” said Raghunath Subramanian, president of Asia-Pacific at UiPath.

The company is planning to hire RPA solution engineers, customer and partner success managers and sales directors, along with strengthening its human resources arm to cope with increased hiring and headcount.

Subramanian, who joined UiPath in 2016 from mid-tier IT company Hexaware, said the company has about 600 employees overall and that headcount, too, would also double.

“We want to do it by next year. Hiring is a key part of our agenda,” he said.

UiPath competes with a slew of RPA providers, the largest of which are Automation Anywhere and the London-listed BluePrism. He said there are 80-90 products companies in the RPA sector.

“The growth of companies is a very good sign because earlier there was not so much of an ecosystem. Now that is being built,” Subramanian said.