Chinese AI startup Laiye banks $42m from Lightspeed, others

Laiye, an AI-powered robotic process automation (RPA) solutions provider based in Beijing, said it has raised US$42 million in a series C funding round co-led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Lightspeed China Partners.

Cathay Innovation and Wu Capital also participated in the round.

Photo credit: Pixabay

“The funds will allow Laiye to recruit the best RPA and AI talent across the globe to strengthen our business and technology,” said Guanchun Wang, chairman and CEO at Laiye. “Over 75% of large enterprises in China have expressed interests in enhancing their RPA projects with AI capabilities.”

Laiye also announced that Jiaqi Weng, the former chief technology officer of rival Emotibot, recently joined Laiye as vice president of solution engineering.

Founded in 2015, Laiye’s RPA platform UiBot allows integration with AI capabilities, such as natural language processing, optical character recognition, computer vision, chatbot, and machine learning.

Robots built on the platform can be used to automate rule-based operations, improving operational efficiency and reducing labor costs. Laiye claims that 200,000 developers have registered for UiBot.

The company also said that it has provided robots to help combat the Covid-19 outbreak to automate process such as health information collection and data aggregation and reporting.

Last year, the company raised US$35 million in a series B funding round led by Cathay Innovation. It is also backed by Sequoia Capital China, Microsoft, and ZhenFund, among others.

Laiye is up against local rivals such as Shanghai-based Emotibot, which secured US$45 million in a series B+ round from V Fund Management and Lingfeng Capital last year.

The global RPA market size is expected to reach US$10.7 billion by 2027, expanding at a compound annual growth rate of 33.6%, according to Grand View Research.