RPA cloudification will bring huge changes to the delivery model and business model.
learned, “ Cloud Expansion Technology ” has officially announced the completion of a $ 30 million Series B financing led by the old shareholder Sequoia Capital China Fund, Jinshajiang Venture Capital, Mingshi Capital blessed, and new shareholders invested in Sino-US funds.
Furthermore, Cloud Expansion Technology also announced that Hu Shichao, the former Chief R & D Director of Microsoft Business Artificial Intelligence and former Global Research and Development Director of UiPath, officially joined Cloud Expansion Technology as the Chief Product Officer.
As of now, Cloud Expansion Technology has received three rounds of financing in the past year. The last round of cloud expansion technology was completed in August 2019. It is a multi-million-dollar A + led by Sequoia China for Sequoia China round of financing, and in June 2019, obtained tens of millions of dollars in financing from Jinshajiang Venture Capital and Mingshi Capital .
The product is gradually mature and enters the stage of rapid expansion
Introduced to China since the end of 2017, and then Last year became a small outlet for venture capital circles , < span> The domestic RPA industry has developed rapidly for nearly three years, and Laiya Technology, Cyclone, and Daguan Technology have appeared. They have gradually matured at the product level and have entered the stage of rapid market expansion.
Since its establishment, Cloud Expansion Technology has focused on the RPA field. At the product level, it has gradually matured and has entered the stage of rapid market expansion. Speaking of new developments, Liu Chungang, founder and CEO of Cloud Expansion Technology, said that at the product level, Cloud Expansion Launched an enterprise level last year. After the intelligent RPA platform , this period has made rapid progress in the basic automation index level, which has greatly improved software compatibility and scalability.
Specifically, in terms of compatibility, RPA products of Cloud Expansion Technology can be compatible with more software and systems, such as SAP, Oracle, Kingdee, UFIDA, WeChat, Dingding, etc., regardless of the number of compatible software or The accuracy of identification controls has been improved several times. In addition to Windows, the current RPA products for cloud expansion can also run in the mobile phone operating system, both internal and external networks can be accessed to achieve cross-end and cross-application.
At the ecological level, the community has grown to a certain size. The cloud expansion community now has more than 50,000 developers, and the partner ecosystem has added more than 100. A new app store and interactive learning platform will be released shortly. .
Continually improving products and ecology have also made the rapid expansion of cloud expansion commercialization. Liu Chungang said that the number of cloud expansion customers will double in 2019 and currently serves more than 200 customers. In addition to the original strengths such as finance and energy, cloud expansion has also expanded to foreign trade, logistics, medical care, government and other fields. At present, the revenue of customers in the financial sector accounts for about 25%, and total revenue has increased by 200%.
Liu Chungang introduced that with the expansion of Cloud Expansion’s benchmarking customers in various industries, product development and deliveryThe system is a step higher than before and can serve customers with more complex organizational systems. Taking a recently completed trade international group as an example, Cloud Expansion has designed and delivered RPA robots for the import and export of entry and declaration of more than 20 subsidiaries of the group. Due to the high level of RPA productization of cloud expansion, the development of new simple processes generally requires only a single engineer, which can be completed within two weeks, and can quickly respond to customer needs.
During the epidemic of the new crown pneumonia, Cloud Expansion Technology also actively assumed social responsibility and used technology to help fight the epidemic. Through the RPA robot, assist the government to increase the processing efficiency of the outbreak consultation by 6 times, help Shanghai resume work and resume production, and have won unanimous praise from customers.
From RPA + AI to AI Inside, cloud RPA is the future enterprise infrastructure
Since RPA has become a small air outlet last year, RPA has always been inseparable from AI. Almost every manufacturer has emphasized the importance of combining with AI. Regarding this issue, Liu Chungang said that compared with the single-point combination of RPA and AI, Cloud Expansion paid more attention to the intelligence of RPA products, that is, the internalization of AI into the ability of RPA itself. For example, Yun Expansion has built a special robot recognition algorithm into the product, which allows RPA robots to continuously strengthen their capabilities in software interface recognition, document understanding, semantic understanding, etc., and the maturity of the product is further improved.
As for the future product form, the key words of the RPA industry this year are no longer just RPA + AI. Cloud RPA has become an important direction for the development of various manufacturers. For example, foreign manufacturer Automation Anywhere launched an RPA platform based on web version and cloud-native development in October 2019. Delivery and operation and maintenance are based on cloud, and enterprises can perform hybrid local / cloud deployment according to demand. In addition, Blue Prism announced its acquisition of Thetonomy last year, bringing RPA to the cloud.
Liu Chungang introduced that previously Cloud Expansion invested a lot in SaaS of RPA, and this year will also release truly cloud-based RPA products-its core positioning makes RPA a part of enterprise infrastructure, similar to the “end + Cloud “operating mode. Previously, RPA products were closely connected to customer business, and were mainly deployed locally. Under the general trend of corporate digital transformation, RPA cloudification can make the product serve more customers’ processes and scenarios.
In addition, RPA cloudification will bring great changes to RPA’s delivery model and business model. At present, RPA is mainly based on the project system, and purchases licenses on an annual basis. The goal of Cloud Expansion is to make RPA pay like demand for hydropower in enterprises, such as the use of robots and the number of pieces, which will greatly reduce RPA products. Threshold of use.
However, for RPA to cloud, not only need to overcome the environmental differences in different operation links, but also large-scale high-performanceCan support with distributed scheduling technology, high concurrency and high availability. In addition, it has a high enough degree of practicality to go to the “RPA as a service” stage. Liu Chungang said that the cloud expansion team was responsible for global public cloud services at Microsoft, and has architects from the founding team members of Azure Stack. He has extensive experience in developing platform services such as high concurrency, high availability, and accurate billing. RPA product development strength.
The foreign RPA industry has developed earlier, and companies such as UiPath, Blue Prism, Atomation Anywhere, etc. have appeared . Since then, RPA products have been introduced to China since the end of 2017, and have become a small outlet for venture capital circles last year. Laye Technology, Cyclone and other manufacturers have appeared in the domestic RPA industry. After three years of rapid development, most of the industry The branch company has initially completed product research and development and entered the stage of commercialization.
For future planning, Liu Chungang introduced that at the product level, cloud expansion will gradually make RPA products more platform-based, become the industry’s universal RPA infrastructure, and improve the robot’s intelligence and ease of use. At the market level, in addition to gradually establishing channels and partner systems to deepen the industry, Cloud Expansion will also further accelerate the pace of internationalization based on the existing Japanese market.
As the lead investor of this round of investment, Sequoia Capital Partner Zheng Qingsheng said: “Cloud expansion is a Chinese team we think of as having a rare combination of powerful technologies, products and an international perspective. Broad market prospects, Leading team strength, innovative enterprise-level products, and stable and high-speed customer growth are important reasons why Sequoia chooses to continue to increase investment. “
Mingshi Capital’s founding partner Huang Mingming said, “Mingshi Capital firmly believes in RPA, a market with trillions of potentials. In the past year, with the explosive growth of customer demand, competition between domestic and foreign manufacturers has begun to intensify. During this period, Yunquan’s products and services have been recognized by our customers, product thickness and stability have been recognized by many partners, and the company’s culture and product philosophy have been recognized by the industry’s top talents. It is believed that after this round of financing, Yunquan It can continue to accelerate growth and further expand its market leadership. “
Li Li, Managing Director of Shenzhen Venture Capital and Chief Partner of Sino-US Parallel Fund, said: “We are optimistic about the company’s enterprise-level service genes and artificial intelligence research and development capabilities. We believe in strong technical product capabilities and forward-looking innovation capabilities. Cloud expansion technology can make it an innovation leader in the international RPA field that cannot be ignored. “
Zhu Xiaohu, partner of Jinshajiang Venture Capital, said: “The data that modern enterprise front-ends need to process has become more and more diverse. RPA can quickly land as a virtual workforce.The channel + user ecosystem will achieve rapid expansion in the market, and the rapid development of cloud expansion technology should also prove that the market highly recognizes their technology, products and services and has greater development space in the future. Cloud expansion technology can be expected in the future. “
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