In This Article:
A rush of agentic AI solutions is hitting the enterprise market, and now one of the bigger players in automation has scooped up a startup in the space in hopes of taking a bigger piece of that market. UiPath, as part of a quarterly result report last night that spelled tougher times ahead, also delivered what it hopes might prove a silver lining. It said it had acquired Peak.ai, a startup founded originally in Manchester, England.
Peak builds “decision-making” AI, covering functions like pricing and inventory management for companies in retail and manufacturing. Daniel Dines, the founder and CEO of UiPath, said was buying it as part of a strategy to build out more AI and automation services for specific verticals.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but sources familiar with the it told TechCrunch that Peak.ai was not looking for a buyer, nor was it at the end of its runway, and the deal was in cash. Robert Anton, whose firm Oxx was one of Peak.ai’s backers, said in an interview that he was “very happy” with the outcome.
Peak last raised money back in 2021, when SoftBank backed the company with $75 million. PitchBook notes that round had valued the company at around $267 million post-money, on a total of $121 million raised from investors that included Octopus, MMC and OurCrowd.
However, Peak reported revenue of just under £9 million ($11.6 million), up 17% from the previous year, in the year ended December 31, 2023, according to its last company accounts filed with Companies House in the U.K.
“Peak continued to grow in a global market, despite facing strong economic headwinds,” the company noted in the filing.
Those headwinds are hitting bigger companies, too. UiPath on Wednesday said its revenue in the fourth quarter increased just 5% to $424 million from a year earlier.
While UiPath beat analyst estimates for net profit for the quarter, it cut its revenue forecast for FY 2026 to between $1.525 billion and $1.530 billion, citing “increasing global macroeconomic uncertainty.” That sent the company’s NYSE-listed shares falling. They were down 18% in pre-market trading on Thursday at the time of writing.
The revised forecast follows a tough year for the company, which in July 2024 laid off 10% of its workforce after lowering full-year expectations for fiscal year 2025.
UiPath currently has a market cap of about $6.5 billion.
Peak could potentially help its new owner bolster revenue growth. The two companies already had partnerships prior to the acquisition, and the idea is that the deal will give UiPath more opportunities to cross-sell its wider set of solutions to Peak’s customers, as well as capture more of Peak's overall revenue.