Microsoft today acquired Softomotive, a robotic process automation (RPA) company that will help beef up its Power Automate product.
Founded in 2005, London-based Softomotive is a leading RPA provider with more than 9,000 customers, and is the creator of desktop tool WinAutomation. RPA involves systems that use AI to learn and then take over routine and mundane software processes and business workflows from human workers.
“By bringing Softomotive’s desktop automation together with the existing Microsoft Power Automate capabilities, at uniquely affordable pricing, Microsoft is further democratizing RPA and enabling everyone to create bots to automate manual business processes,” Microsoft wrote in a blog post.
Softomotive competed with New York-based UIPath, which has raised more than $1 billion and has a R&D hub in Bellevue, Wash., nearby Microsoft’s headquarters.
Bloomberg previously reported about the deal earlier this month. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced the acquisition at the company’s Build developer event, where it rolled out new product features for Teams; an Azure supercomputer; and much more.
