Every month or two, we do a quick round-up of the deals in the Information Management and Automation sector that caught our eyes. So much activity is a sign of health and strength in the industry. It gives us an idea of where things are heading, what has peaked, and what is on the rise. There is never a month that goes by without multiple deals and significant investments made. This past month or so gave us a bunch of interesting deals, which we highlight below. However, I want to clarify that this list is not comprehensive. It is simply the ones that came across our desk and caught our eye. If you spot any interesting omissions, let us know.
First up was the news that SS&C completed its $1.6B acquisition of RPA vendor Blue Prism. Though no doubt SS&C did their homework on this, many in the industry have been scratching their heads on why there was such a high valuation. There are hundreds of RPA vendors that could have been bought at a small fraction of that price. BluePrism is one of the few big names in the RPA sector, but to get a near ten times return on this investment (the firm had revenues of just over $100m) may well prove to be a challenge. Still, it’s far from the first SS&C acquisition (28 to date), and nor is it their first $1B plus deal, the most recent being the acquisition of Intralinks $1.5B in 2018. Plus, SS&C has a market cap of around $20B, so I am sure it will all work out, but not sure we will be seeing too many more such valuations of RPA firms moving forward.
The second one to catch our attention was the acquisition of Israeli startup RPA Kryon by Nintex. The Kryon deal came in at a much lower multiple, and we believe the deal to have been around $100m. Nintex was acquired by private equity firm TPG in 2021 and seems to be en route to building up a more extensive portfolio of assets over the next few years. Mirroring the consolidation plays of OpenText, Upland, and Hyland in some ways.
Last but not least China-based DataGrand, a startup focused on text recognition and processing, managed to land $92m in funding.
The surge of interest in document capture is undoubtedly not limited to the US & Europe, and maybe most interesting is its total funding to date to $163m. In valuation terms, if not revenue, making DataGrand one of the most heavily funded capture startups globally.
There were a bunch of other deals recently, including:
Bonitasoft a French-based open-source business process management vendor, acquired by Fortino Capital. You can read our recent review of Bonitasoft here.
The big Australian ECM/RM player Objective Software announced that it had acquired file migration and integration specialist Simflofy.
Upland continued its buying spree by acquiring veteran enterprise search vendor BAInsight, bringing the number of deals that Upland has closed to thirty, with surely more to come. Upland runs under the radar but has become a force in the industry over the past five years.
Long story short, a lot is going on, and many more deals are in the works. It’s exciting times for sure in the industry!