China’s automation giant Laiye closes $160M to accelerate global rollout of its intelligent automation platform

Just last week, we wrote about Laiye after the Chinese automation giant acquired French AI tech startup Mindsay to lead the market shift to intelligent automation. The acquisition enables the company to provide its clients with low-code, and no-code technology required to automate customer service and back-office processes.

Fresh out of the acquisition deal, Laiye announced today it has closed $160 million in a Series C funding round with the latest tranche at $70 million led by HOPU Magnolia, a high-growth enterprise technology-focused investment firm.

Other backers include VMS Group and Youshan Capital, with existing investors such as Lightspeed China Partners and US-based Lightspeed Venture Partners also participating in this round. The announcement comes on the heels of Laiye’s $50 million investment in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA).

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. The company also focuses on enterprise customers in the insurance, communications, electric power, finance, retail, and healthcare industries to build end-to-end Intelligent Automation solutions.

Laiye’s global customers include Porsche, LVMH, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson Medical, and Roche Pharmaceuticals. Already a market leader in China, Laiye provides Intelligent Automation solutions to Chinese companies such as China Southern Power Grid, PetroChina, Bank of China, China Construction Bank, China Unicom, China Mobile, and China Telecom.

Guanchun Wang, Chairman and CEO of Laiye said: “Laiye has made great strides in expanding its success in China to the Asia Pacific, the Americas, and EMEA. We envision a future where all organizations and people are transformed, emboldened, and made better by the power of intelligent automation. An AI-enabled digital workforce developed from Laiye’s integrated intelligent automation platform will help our customers accelerate their digital transformation journey. This new round of funding will continue to fuel our relentless product innovation and triple-digit YoY revenue growth in the years to come.”

This funding round comes on the back of Laiye’s recent acquisition of Paris-based Mindsay, a leading European enterprise conversation AI firm, and the establishment of a new R&D hub in Paris. Laiye plans to deploy the new capital to accelerate expansion in APAC, the Americas, and EMEA. These regions represent Laiye’s largest growth opportunity, where legacy Robotic Process Automation systems often leave businesses struggling to transform complex processes.

Over the past 12 months, Laiye more than doubled its team outside China to 100+ employees, about 15% of the total workforce, grew its partner network to 600+ strong, and fostered one of the world’s largest intelligent automation developer communities of more than 600,000 registered users globally.

HOPU Magnolia is the lead investor in this round, and Gunther Hamm, Co-Head of HOPU Magnolia, said: “HOPU Magnolia is thrilled to partner with Laiye, a leader in Intelligent Automation. We have known and tracked Laiye’s progress closely since it was founded, and have watched it grow from strength to strength serving mid-market and global enterprises. It has fully established its business model and is rapidly growing its revenue and customer base.”

Albert Lu, Head of Market Access and Innovation Digitalization at Johnson & Johnson, said: “Laiye has successfully implemented our conversational AI which helped to streamline and improve our communication with customers, making it more efficient, personalized, and cost-effective. Continuous data accumulation and mining enhance our chatbots’ accuracy, thus improving our ability to serve our customers.”

Ronen Lamdan, CEO of Laiye International, said: “At Laiye, we are striving to fulfill our mission of harnessing intelligent automation technology to liberate workers from mundane tasks, enhance workplace efficiency, and transform businesses at speed and scale. This latest round of financing will accelerate our business growth and enable us to serve more large enterprises, government organizations, and SMEs across the world.”

“HOPU Magnolia, as HOPU’s dedicated growth fund, seeks to help emerging businesses further accelerate their growth through access to HOPU’s unparalleled resources. We are excited to help Laiye grow its business with core customers from across our unrivaled network of banks and large enterprises,” said Jacqueline Zhang, Co-Head of HOPU Magnolia.