Apromore will use the fresh funds to strengthen its product development capacity, and expand into AI-driven automated process improvement
Melbourne-headquartered open-source process mining and AI-driven process improvement startup Apromore has raised AU$6.84 million (US$4.77 million) in a Series A financing round led by German business process management specialist GBTEC, the startup announced in a press release today.
The round also saw participation from Melbourne-based consulting and technology firm Leonardo, and The University of Melbourne, where Apromore was incubated before it spun off.
Apromore will use the latest funds to strengthen its product development capacity, expand into AI-driven automated process improvement, including robotic process mining, prescriptive process analytics, and automated decision optimisation, according to the press release.
According to the 2019 Market Guide for Process Mining by Gartner, “[Apromore] focuses significantly more than its competitors on intelligent support for model enhancement, and on predictive analytics.”
Apromore’s CEO, Prof. Marcello La Rosa said, “Apromore inherits a decade of R&D in the field of business process management and process mining, and we have packed the most advanced algorithms for process mining into Apromore’s products.”
“This investment will allow us to maintain our competitive advantage, by incorporating the latest research and innovations in the field of AI-driven automated process improvement into our product. It will also allow us to continue pursuing our mission of democratizing process mining via a commercial open-source business model,” he added.
Rosa, a PhD graduate and professor of Information Systems at the University of Melbourne, was struck with the idea to build Apromore in 2008, when he was invited to Eindhoven, Netherlands to work for a couple of months on a logistics research process.
The research triggered work on an Advanced Process Model Repository, which gave birth to the acronym AProMoRe, a tool that Rosa quickly realized held immense value for organizations. The first team was then formed, who penned the first paper, APROMORE: An Advanced Process Model Repository, that formed the basis for the startup.
The research team launched their first prototype in 2010, perceived as an open source platform to display their own research. In 2013, the startup pivoted to focus on process mining. In 2015, Rosa realized that he had created a product, not just a research prototype.
Although research for Apromore was under-way for over 10 years, the startup only spun off from The University of Melbourne in September last year, and had received significant seed funding from the university up till that point.
Prof. Uwe Aickelin, Head of the School of Computing and Information Systems at The University of Melbourne said, “This successful spinoff is testimony to the quality and relevance of the research conducted in our school, and accentuates our position as a world-class hub for computing research”.
Commenting on the funding, Prof. Mark Cassidy, Dean of Melbourne School of Engineering added, “This is a clear demonstration of the strong commitment of the University of Melbourne’s School of Engineering to turn world-class research into commercial innovation.”
According to Apromore’s website, the startup had received over $7 million in research and seed funding, and the latest fundraise puts the startup’s total funding at over $11 million.
Apromore delivers its process mining platform and offers consultancy services through a network of international service partners, and claims to have helped dozens of organizations leverage their data to improve productivity, product & service quality, and compliance.
The company is also entering a strategic partnership with GBTEC along with investments in Series A, that would allow GBTEC to offer Apromore’s process mining technology as a core component of its BIC Platform for business process modeling and automation, according to the press report.
GBTEC’s CEO, Gregor Greinke said, “The integration of Apromore into the BIC Platform will provide a one-stop shop for companies seeking to accelerate their digital transformation journey with full-lifecycle process optimization.”
“The analytics capabilities that Apromore brings into the BIC Platform are truly exceptional when it comes to identifying underperforming processes, rework loops, waste, and bottlenecks. By joining forces, we are certain to establish one of the best analytics and AI-driven process optimization tools on the market,” he added.
Leonardo’s Managing Director Adam Mutton said, “Apromore is leading the way in innovative AI-driven process improvement – from automated discovery of actual as-is processes, to predictive process modeling based on live data to future directions involving integrated robotic process discovery, scripting and automation.”
“Clients are excited by the ability to dramatically reduce discovery and analysis time, rapidly analyze large data sets and drill to specific issues and root-cause analysis to determine the highest priority improvements,” he added.
Header image courtesy of Apromore
Top: (L-R) Apromore Co-founders CEO Prof. Marcello La Rosa, Partnerships Manager Prof. Marlon Dumas, Chief Software Architect Dr Simon Raboczi, and Chief Data Scientist Dr Ilya Verenich
