• YFM completes £5m investment in AutomatePro to fund US expansion, tech innovation and customer success capabilities.
• AutomatePro’s patent protected product built on the ServiceNow platform, improves the efficiency and effectiveness of cloud platform development teams and helps to speed up and reduce the cost of maintaining critical software for enterprise customers including pharmaceutical giants, global banks, public sector and IT services partners.

Through its British Smaller Companies VCTs, YFM Equity Partners (YFM) has completed a £5m Series A investment in AutomatePro, a cloud based intelligent test automation and DevOps software provider, to help the team build on its presence in the US and continue to invest in product innovation.

AutomatePro is experiencing rapid growth by helping to solve enterprise customers’ needs of maintaining regulatory compliance of critical cloud platforms and getting the most out of their investment in platforms such as ServiceNow.

The software is particularly compelling for companies operating within heavily regulated industries such as financial services and pharmaceuticals, and enables firms to maintain robust, compliant documentation and adhere to strict quality control and audit standards.

With its patented intelligent software solution, AutomatePro removes mundane and repetitive tasks from development teams, helping keep software up to date and running efficiently, and helps businesses accelerate delivery of business critical applications on their enterprise cloud platforms.

AutomatePro’s product is closely aligned with multi-billion-dollar revenue software business ServiceNow, enabling automated testing and automated documentation creation for its enterprise Software as a Service (SaaS) platform, helping accelerate ServiceNow’s customers’ digital transformation programs.  AutomatePro is part of the select ServiceNow Solutions Partner Programme and the only automated testing and DevOps app on the ServiceNow App Store.

YFM’s investment will be used to scale up AutomatePro’s sales, marketing and customer success functions and to develop innovative new product modules. The investment will also help the business continue expansion into the US, filling the demand from the existing and growing ServiceNow ecosystem.

This marks the latest investment by YFM into the DevOps software sector, following investments in Quality Clouds and intelligent analytics SaaS platform, Plandek.

Roshan Puri, Investment Director at YFM Equity Partners said:

“the AutomatePro team has built a world class SaaS product that’s delivering significant value to some of the largest and most complex organisations. Intelligent automated testing is a key feature of DevOps best practice and has become a necessity for organisations looking to maximise value from their IT infrastructure and IT talent. We are really bullish on investing further in software and services business enabling DevOps, and the great teams we are backing are benefiting from being part of a group of high growth business in this space with the common support of YFM.”

Paul Chorley, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of AutomatePro, said:

“We are delighted to welcome YFM on board as our first institutional shareholder, having recognised early on the alignment with our strategy and values. We are very grateful for the support we have had from PrefCap and our seed investors in getting us to this stage. The investment and support from YFM will enable us to help even more enterprises across the globe accelerate their digital transformation with ServiceNow and other cloud platforms. Our customers will benefit from an increased capacity to further innovative our ground-breaking automated DevOps capabilities.”

The YFM team included Roshan Puri, Ben Pitt and Jamie Roberts.  The AutomatePro team included Paul Chorley, Wayne Devonald, Steven Zhang, Martijn Leentjes, Andy Cooke and Dan Ellis.

Advisers to YFM on the investment included: Legal: Irwin Mitchell, Financial Due Diligence: Pegafund, Organisational Due Diligence: Confidas People, Commercial Due Diligence: Sales Blueprint, Technical Due Diligence: Code&Co, Tax Due Diligence: DTE Group and VCT advice: Philip Hare & Associates. Advisors to AutomatePro included: Legal: K&L Gates and Corporate Finance: Mountside Ventures.

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About YFM

YFM invests £2m to £10m into businesses with strong growth potential located across the UK through a regional network of offices in London, Leeds, Manchester, Reading and Birmingham.

YFM Equity Partners are specialist, independently owned, private equity investors. Having recently celebrated 40 years of investing experience, our portfolio may have changed over the years, but our ethos has remained the same – to support small businesses across the UK in their next phase of growth. We seek to unlock value and growth potential by providing up to £10 million of equity to fuel the development of established business throughout the UK regions. We do this by helping our portfolio companies launch new initiatives, make transformative acquisitions, and upgrade technologies and systems. We are dedicated to working alongside management teams to create long-term value for our investors, the companies we invest in, and make a positive economic impact for the communities in which we work. We manage funds in excess of £420 million which include venture capital trusts and private equity funds.

YFM Equity Partners conducts its investment business through its subsidiary YFM Private Equity Limited which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN: 122120).

For more information, please visit www.yfmep.com or follow us on LinkedIn

About AutomatePro

AutomatePro offers patented intelligent automated testing and software development quality control DevOps solutions for enterprise cloud platforms such as ServiceNow.  AutomatePro enables companies to test and assess business-critical enterprise cloud applications with unprecedented effectiveness and efficiency. AutomatePro accelerates ServiceNow upgrades and testing, with Intelligent Test Automation, DevOps and Documentation, freeing up developers time and unlocking the full value for customers of enterprise cloud platforms. AutomatePro is ideal for industries subject to high levels of regulation or where quality control and audit documentation is a must have.  AutomatePro serves many industries including Life Sciences, Healthcare, Banking, Insurance, Financial Services, High Tech, Telecom, Manufacturing, Retail, Healthcare, Utilities, Public Sector and other leading industries requiring the highest levels of quality control. AutomatePro has a global presence with customers across the globe.

For more information, please visit www.automatepro.com or follow us on LinkedIn.