After the recent listing on the New York Stock Exchange of the Romanian robotics unicorn UiPath, the Croatian Robotiq.ai recently announced its new €900K investment from the Czech early-stage J&T Ventures. The interest towards startups that develop the digital workforce of the future is growing in the region.
Founded in 2018 by Ivan Belas, Darko Jovisic, and Marko Gudelj, Robotiq.ai creates a robotic process automation (RPA) platform. It helps businesses optimize their workflow and reduce repetitive tasks with software robotics by combining technologies such as deep learning and chatbots.
Advantage in speed and simplicity
According to the positioning of the startup, its key competitive advantage stems from the fact that its solutions can be implemented on-premise, in hybrid, and in cloud modes. The software robots of Robotq.ai are able to operate completely autonomously without the need for external supervision. The AI technologies used to build the RPA platform, reduce the chance of mistakes and eliminate potential problems before they arise.
From the user’s perspective, the solution of Robotiq.ai is also relatively simple to operate with. The platform has one central headquarters (HQ) application, through which clients can manage all of the robots, schedule their work, and keep track of the status and utilization of the robots.
Hybrid RPA or full automation?
Despite the fact that the software robots of Robotiq.ai can work in an unattended mode, the startup’s vision is that human employees should be kept in the loop. That is why the RPA platform integrates elements such as the chatbot and the process editor that allow interaction between the robots and the employees. They enable manual modifications and seek human validation. The mediator between the human and the digital workers in the platform of Robotiq.ai is their optional chatbot component that transmits messages and information between the employees and the robots.
The role of the chatbot is to enable the engineers who design the processes to ask the employees for approval and log their answers for future references. The startup is now working on integrating the chatbot with popular communication apps such as Slack and Microsoft Teams to make communication more efficient.
On the other hand, as the name of the startup suggests, AI is still an integral part of the solution of Robotiq.ai and the platform relies on machine learning and neural networks to develop robots with cognitive capabilities this means that “digital RPA workers” are able to recognize elements visually instead of using selectors which are more difficult to operate and require technical expertise.
According to one of the co-founders of Robotiq.ai, Darko Jovisic, RPA solutions can do pretty much everything that a human employee, working in accounting, controlling or customer service does – from clicking on applications and entering and extracting data, to reading spreadsheets in Excel. When such monotonous tasks are taken care of by robots, the employees are left with more time to engage in more creative and complex tasks. In return, it raises the efficiency of the organization and improves customer satisfaction, as clients receive faster service.
More visibility and smart expansion
As the startup currently operates with only 10 full-time employees, one of the main internal goals would be to significantly expand its team by the end of this year. The recent investment will mainly be used to boost the sales and marketing efforts of the company by selling through partners and exploiting new sales opportunities through campaigns. As explained by Jovisic, one of the main challenges ahead of the company are market visibility. Their goal would be to accelerate their digital presence through more webinars, ads, content marketing, and sponsorship of relevant initiatives.
When it comes to market opportunities, Robotiq.ai plans to focus on the CEE, Middle East, South American, and Asian markets. Those are considered to be insufficiently covered by the competitors of the Croatian RPA startup. After establishing a strong presence in these markets, Rbotiq.ai expects to also use the investment as a trampoline to enter the richer and more mature UK and US markets, which are characterized by high rates of adoption and higher competition.
