French AI tech startup Mindsay acquired by Chinese intelligent automation firm Laiye

Laiye, a robotic process automation (RPA) and artificial intelligence (AI) provider, has acquired French AI tech startup Mindsay to lead the market shift to intelligent automation. The total amount of the deal was not disclosed.

This announcement comes on the heels of Laiye’s $50 million investment in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). Ronen Lamdan, CEO International of Laiye, said the acquisition will give the company’s clients a powerful, low-code, and no-code technology to automate customer service and back-office processes.

Founded in 2016 by CEO Guillaume Laporte, Adam Ostrow, Ilias Hicham, and Pierre Pakey, the Paris, France-based Mindsay enables companies to provide simple and efficient customer interactions through Conversational AI. Mindsay’s chatbots and voicebots are used by leading brands in the retail, travel & hospitality, and fintech industries.

As part of the acquisition agreement, Laporte will become the General Manager of Laiye’s international chatbot business. Mindsay co-founders Ilias Hicham and Pierre Pakey will become Head of Product for Laiye’s international chatbot business and Head of Product Innovation for the Intelligent Document Process product line, respectively.

Founded in 2015 by CEO Guanchun Wang, Ji Gu, and Yichuan Hu, the Beijing, China-based Laiye develops software that mimics human intelligence to help organizations operate at new levels of productivity and efficiency.

Commenting on the acquisition, Wang said, “Laiye and Mindsay were founded with the same vision to help companies transform digitally and become more effective, efficient, and successful. This acquisition comes on the heels of Laiye’s US$50 million investment in EMEA. It marks a significant milestone in our journey to create the most comprehensive Intelligent Automation solution, making it affordable and accessible to help businesses do better and be better.”

The Intelligent Automation market is burgeoning with Gartner predicting process-agnostic software tools such as RPA, AI, IDP, Chatbots and Process Mining supporting this market to hit nearly $46 billion by 2025. This is largely driven by organizations rapidly accelerating their digital business plans to cope with the impact of the pandemic. Gartner also predicts that a digital workforce will force businesses to speed up their digital business transformation plans by at least five years as a mode of survival to adapt to a post-pandemic world.

“The acquisition of Mindsay gives our clients a powerful, low-code and no-code technology to automate customer service and back-office processes. Combine that with our robotic process automation offering to streamline repetitive workflows and a conversational interface that understands human language, and you have a cutting-edge platform to digitize and automate key parts of your business,” said Ronen Lamdan, CEO International of Laiye.

Guillaume Laporte, CEO and Co-Founder of Mindsay said, “More companies have realized the vital role that chatbots, powered by conversational Al, play in enabling powerful self-service experiences, and Mindsay has been key in driving this space. We are incredibly excited to join Laiye at this pivotal time. We are extremely impressed by the outstanding quality of Laiye’s teams and technology. Together we will be able to provide more value to our customers worldwide.”

Matthieu Lattes, General Partner, WhiteStar Capital, said, “We have been honored to contribute to the development of Mindsay over the past few years and are delighted to join forces with Laiye to build a global leader in the Intelligent Automation space. We are trustful that the combined entity will have the appropriate combination of skills, people, and geographical footprint to reach its ambitions.”

James Mi, Founding Partner, Lightspeed China Ventures, said, “It’s great to see Laiye and Mindsay join forces. As one of Laiye’s earliest investors, we witnessed how the company quickly developed into a global pioneer that offers a suite of automation and AI products including conversational AI, RPA and Intelligent Document Processing from a chatbot leader in the China market. This Mindsay acquisition will further accelerate Laiye’s growth to become the world leader in Intelligent Automation.”