Blue Prism Group plc., one of the bigger names in the fast-growing robotic process automation market, today announced that it’s acquiring Thoughtonomy Ltd. to strengthen its product capabilities.

The cash and stock deal is worth up to £80 million, or $100 million, including performance-based earnouts.

This represents a big bet for Blue Prism. The 18-year-old British firm, which counts itself among the industry’s most well-established RPA providers, is currently unprofitable and has been investing aggressively in growth initiatives to capitalize on the rising demand for automation software.

Blue Prism’s platform enables companies to free up employees from mundane, repetitive tasks such as data entry. Like other RPA products, the software uses artificial intelligence to automate workflows. It observes how employees interact with a business application by looking at their screens and over time learns to emulate them.

Six-year-old Thoughtonomy has developed a solution that makes Blue Prism’s software available as a managed cloud service. Blue Prism supports cloud-based delivery on its end as well, but only in a limited form: Customers looking to run the software off-premises have to set it up manually on a platform such as Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Corp.’s Azure.

Blue Prism plans to use Thoughtonomy’s technology to start distributing its offering under a software-as-a-service model. On top of the improved cloud support, Blue Prism is also gaining a collection of automation features that the startup has built atop its software. Among them is Wireframer, a tool that promises to reduce the time it takes to create automation workflows by up to 70%.

“The acquisition of Thoughtonomy will support a broader strategy to strengthen our portfolio with cloud offerings that deliver value and enhance customer experience,” Blue Prism Chief Executive Alastair Bathgate said in a statement. “Thoughtonomy brings valuable knowledge and experience in the development and implementation of cloud-based intelligent digital workers.”

Blue Prism expects to wrap up the acquisition by the end of July. The deal comes as the company faces rising competition from other RPA providers such as UiPath Inc., which in April closed a massive $568 million funding round at a $7 billion valuation.

Photo: Blue Prism