Skilled talent shortages, a looming recession and increased global competition has driven companies to automate more processes than ever. In fact, according to Gartner, the global robotic process automation (RPA) segment alone saw revenue growth of 31% in 2021, reaching a total value of $2.4 billion and almost twice the growth rate of the overall software market (16%). 

Furthermore, experts predict that the market shows no signs of slowing down and will continue to grow over the next 8 years to an estimated $20.1 billion in 2030.

While the RPA market was once dominated by startups and niche players, this explosive growth has led to high levels of M&A activity. With companies like UiPath, IBM, Salesforce and SAP scooping up smaller players, the 10 largest RPA “mega-vendors” now account for more than 75% of the market, up from 70% in 2021. 

In order to compete, smaller players have been teaming up as well, forming new partnerships to deliver an expanded array of services and solutions. The result is that, since January 1, 2022 the business process automation industry has seen an unprecedented level of M&A activity. The following is a list of those deals spanning RPA, intelligent document process and intelligent automation. 

Here is a timeline of those deals. 

2022’s RPA, Intelligent Automation & IDP Deals

August 31, 2022

ConnectWise acquired Wise-Sync, an integrated payment automation platform. The company plans to integrate Wise-Sync’s payment processing and invoicing automation functionality into its IT solution provider (TSP) software. 

August 25th, 2022

Clearlake Capital and TA Associates-backed Kofax acquired intelligent document processing (IDP) competitor Ephesoft. In addition to bringing along its considerable customer-base, Ephesoft also offers Kofax additional capabilities such as handwritten text recognition, AI-based template-free processing, compliance workload expertise, and verticalized accelerators and connectors. Kofax has a long history of successful acquisitions, this being the 17th since 1995 and 2nd for the year. 

August 9, 2022

Vergence Solutions, an Indianapolis based 8(a) SDB Certified Business, has acquired IT consulting firm Abstract Technology Group. Together they will offer robotic process automation (RPA), application development & managed IT services capabilities

August 4, 2022

Datadog, a security-focused cloud monitoring platform, acquires API observability platform Seekret. As the number of APIs in use continues to grow, many organizations struggle to effectively manage and monitor them. By incorporating Seekret’s eBPF technology into its platform, Datadog’s users will now be able to automate API discovery, visualization and monitoring. 

August 1, 2022

UiPath acquires Re:infer, a startup that specializes in using natural language processing (NLP) to transform unstructured text-based data from documents and emails into structured data. By combining Re:infer with UiPath’s existing solutions, companies will be able to automate personalized responses to customer emails. 

August 1, 2022

EY acquires Digital Detox, a UK-based digital engineering consultancy firm.

July 25, 2022

Clearlake Capital and TA Associates acquired intelligent automation company Kofax from PE firm Thoma Bravo. 

July 13, 2022

Accounting firm RubinBrown merges with Himes Consulting Group, an advisory firm that specializes in RPA and CRM (customer relationship management) consulting services. 

July 6, 2022

In order to expand its RPA and Intelligent Automation capabilities, iLink Digital purchases InnoWise. The ultimate goal? To evolve into a full-service digital transformation solution provider. 

July 5, 2022

Consultancy firm BP3 acquires workflow automation company, Extra technology. 

July 1, 2022

Business process management services provider WNS acquires Vuram, an enterprise automation service provider.  

May 11, 2022

Virginia-based technology consultancy Impact Makers acquires Amplitude9, an RPA solutions provider. 

May 9, 2022

IT service management company Cressanda Solutions acquires Lucida Technologies, a provider of data analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning, full-stack, mobile and robotic process automation software solutions. 

March 4, 2022

SaaS incident response platform, PagerDuty, has acquired Catalytic, a no-code workflow automation platform. According to PagerDuty, “Our combined capabilities will provide businesses with a unified platform for work that can tackle both front and back office workflows, expanding our impact beyond DevOps, technical and customer service teams to roles across Legal, Finance, HR, Sales and beyond.” 

February 17, 2022

Workflow automation company Nintex, backed by private equity firm TPG Capital, acquired Kryon, a robotic process automation (RPA) software company. 

January 3, 2022

Automation Anywhere acquires FortressIQ to equip its platform with process discovery capabilities.