Not to be outdone by some startups riding high even in the midst of macroeconomic uncertainty, process mining software provider Selonis announced today that it has raised $1 billion in additional capital at a $13 billion post-money, equity ($400 million) mix. and debt (a five-year $600 million line of credit). Technically an extension of Celonis’ Series D, the infusion brings the total capital raised in the latest round to $2.4 billion.
Now one of Germany’s most important private companies and one of New York’s most important startups (with offices in Munich and NYC), Selonis started as a university project 11 years ago. Alex Rinke, Bastian Nominacher and Martin Klenk founded the company as a spin-off from the Technical University of Munich and in 2012 Selonis joined the SAP Startup Focus program, an accelerator for analytics startups building new applications on the SAP HANA platform.
Process mining is part of robotic process automation, or RPA, which aims to automate single, repetitive tasks performed by humans using software. Process mining involves extracting data from systems including desktop, IT, email applications and workflows to identify root cause problems. RPA sets the stage for action capture that occurs as users move through the process they want to automate.
Like other process mining technologies, Selonis uses automated steps to find process problems in enterprise systems. But it goes a step further by trying to automatically fix process problems without users having to touch the root system.
Major RPA vendors have invested in building mining. Automation Anywhere also developed some of its own tools before acquiring rival UiPath for Process Gold and StepShot for their process mining capabilities. IBM recently acquired process mining software company MyInvenio. Blue Prism has released Capture, a process mining application, meanwhile, other vendors are expanding their own process mining offerings, including ABBYY and Nintext-owned Kryon.
Selonis – which is benefiting from strong demand from ongoing mining – said it currently has more than 2,500 corporate agreements worldwide. It works with 10,000 consultants and 2,000 consulting firms and technology partners (among them IBM, Accenture, PWC, KPMG and ServiceNow); and has graduated more than 100,000 “professionals” from its certificate program.
“Since the early days of Selonis, we have built a company that operates on sound fundamentals, consistent customer value and the resilience to perform at a high level in any economic environment,” said Nominacher, who serves as CEO of Selonis. They put them down, others go back. With an additional $1 billion in liquidity, Cellonis will have greater flexibility to innovate, capitalize on new market opportunities and extend our market leadership.
Qatar Investment Authority’s Qatar Sovereign Wealth Fund led the new investment in Ceylonese. Other participants include Active Capital, Arena Holdings, T. Rowe Price, Franklin Templeton, Durable Capital Partners, TCV, 83North, Accel Partners and Sator Grove. Selonis said the new cash will be used for product development, customer acquisition and general market expansion.
