ElectroNeek carves partner-friendly RPA niche with unlimited bots

RPA vendor ElectroNeek’s mid-sized enterprise and Managed Service Provider-friendly (MSP) model saw its license revenues soar 400% in 2020 – and the company reach a valuation of $105m on a $20m raise of Series A funding in June 2021.

ElectroNeek was founded by former RPA consultants on a belief that RPA should be more accessible for small and medium enterprises (SME). They wanted to make the tech accessible so that any company could start automating, with a business model small and medium enterprises could sustain.

Their approach means developers can work in a low-code environment with access to pro RPA features for the more experienced. And when a firm signs up with one of ElectroNeek’s partners for managed services access, that enterprise gets an unlimited number of attended and unattended bot licenses at no additional cost.

Enterprises can scale without racking up additional bot license costs

Enterprises use ElectroNeek to save on often costly multiple bot licenses when automating routine business processes. Its 250 customers include Fortune 500 companies as well as the SMEs it set out to serve. They include Pattern Group for marketing lead generation, Pronto Insurance for synchronizing custom IT systems, Electrolux for optimized fleet scheduling, and Beluga for employee onboarding.

ElectroNeek can already boast Sage as a global partner, with around 70 MSPs in North America, Europe, Lat-Am, Africa, and Asia-Pac.

MSPs can target recurring revenues with RPA subscription services

MSPs turn to ElectroNeek for a cost-effective platform in which to build and deploy RPA bots for their customers while retaining control of the pricing of projects. They can offer bot development and administration and RPA-as-a-Service subscriptions – providing recurring revenue.

ElectroNeek has also established technology and go-to-market partnerships with Microsoft, Oracle, and Nvidia.

The San-Francisco-based vendor offers three products; Studio Pro – an integrated development environment in which to build RPA bots; Bot Runner – a free-to-download agent to run RPA bots without software licenses; SaaS Orchestrator – a browser-based automation hub connecting bots and workflow services.

Enterprise investment in RPA shows little sign of slowing

Most of ElectroNeek’s growth has come from North American mid-market companies rushing toward business process automation during the pandemic. An HFS Research survey of representatives of the Global 2000 found almost two-thirds planned to increase their spend on RPA in response to Covid-19 (Exhibit 1). And the business has also been expanding its presence outside the United States, including India and the LATAM region among others.

ElectroNeek now plans to use its recent $20m Series A funding to expand its engineering, product, and support teams in North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and India.

Exhibit 1: Investment in RPA accelerated in two-thirds of those surveyed

Sample: 400 representatives of the Global 2000
Source: HFS Research, March 2021 – supported by Blue Prism

The Bottom Line: ElectroNeek offers enterprises an easy and controllable route into RPA

The commercial and consumption models for RPA are in flux – ranging from open source free (eg: Robocorp), free/bundled (eg: Microsoft, Appian) to more traditional licensing models of the established “big three” RPA providers and even they are getting creative such as Blue Prism’s “all-in-one” pricing for RPA plus complementary products like ServiceAssist.

ElectroNeek gives the neglected small-to medium-enterprise segment a rapid route to value from automation in a model that takes away the fear of unknown, and potentially runaway, bot license costs. They have made it easy and lower-risk for IT departments to start on their automation journeys, while providing focused support to MSPs for both go-to-market to, and scale within, the enterprise. And ElectroNeek is smart to bring its MSP partners along for the ride at a time when the speed to value potential of managed services is gaining traction.