China automation specialist Laiye raises $70m

Other investors include Youshan Capital, VMS Group and Hong Kong-listed Far East Horizon. Existing investors Lightspeed China Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners - the US affiliate of Lightspeed China - re-upped.

Laiye claims the Series C now totals more than USD 160m. The first extension of USD 50m, led by Ping An Global Voyager Fund and Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Industry Equity Investment Fund, closed in 2021. It followed a USD 42m Series C in 2020 led by Lightspeed China and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Lightspeed China provided seed and Series A funding in 2015 and 2016, respectively. An extended Series B of USD 35m, led by Cathay Innovation, the venture affiliate of Cathay Capital, closed in 2019. 

Laiye's revenue has expanded at an annual rate of 120% over the past three years. The company serves more than 200 Fortune 500 companies, over 200 government agencies, and thousands of small to medium-sized enterprises across power distribution, banking, insurance, communications, and retail.

Customers include State Grid Corporation of China, China Southern Power Grid, PetroChina, China National Nuclear Corporation, Bank of China, China Construction Bank, China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, Shougang Group, Longfor Properties, and Yili Group.

Founded in 2015, Laiye initially focused on interactive robots for consumer and business end-users. The strategy changed in 2019 with the acquisition of Awesome Technology, an RPA specialist, which coincided with the extended Series B.

RPA systems simulate human behaviour and fully automate highly manual processes, which can reduce labour costs, improve efficiency, and ensure projects are completed consistently. If AI can be equated to a robot's brain, RPA is the robot's hands.

Laiye has combined the two capabilities. Awesome’s RPA platform UiBot was integrated with Laiye’s AI capabilities, which cover natural language processing, optical character recognition, computer vision, chatbot, and machine learning.

Earlier this year, Laiye acquired Mindsay, a European enterprise chatbot and voicebot platform to advance its goal of becoming the leading global provider of next-generation intelligent automation software. There are plans for a new R&D hub in Paris.

The company has already established an overseas team of more than 100 people, spread across 15 countries in Southeast Asia, Europe, and North America. A large part of the new funding will go towards global expansion.

Laiye is also keen to build an international developer community. In China, it has established a network of 600,000 developers and 600 partners, chiefly by organizing RPA+AI competitions and launching a bot store that connects SMEs to freelance developers. This experience will be replicated elsewhere in the world.

"We have made great progress in the international market in the past year, and we have determined to make Europe the base for breakthroughs with large enterprises in developed markets," said Guanchun Wang, chairman and CEO of Laiye. "In 2025, more than half of our revenue will come from overseas markets."

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Technology
• Expansion
• China
• artificial intelligence
• Lightspeed Venture Partners
• Hopu Investment Management
• VMS Group
• Growth capital