UiPath CEO Daniel Dines on the company's IPO

Daniel Dines, UiPath CEO, joined Yahoo Finance Live to discuss the company's stock market debut and his plans for the company this year.

Video Transcript

SEANA SMITH: Let's take a look at another huge mover today, and that is UiPath-- the company going public earlier. They priced at $56 a share, opened at $66. And the stock is still taking off right now, with just around 25 minutes to go in the trading day. You can see it's trading around $67 a share. We want to bring in Daniel Dines. He is the CEO of UiPath, and also Yahoo Finance's anchor Brian Sozzi joining the conversation.

Daniel, let's just first start with the path in which you chose to do this. You went the traditional route at a time when we see so many companies go direct listing or favor SPACs. Why did you choose this route at a time when it's not as popular?

DANIEL DINES: We believe that that was the right route for us. It's a great market for raising capital. And I feel that we, despite the recent choppiness in the markets, we had the great IPO. We priced it well. We've been able to choose our investors that we believe are long partners to us.

And we just had a decent pop-- 20% to 25%. In a way, I believe that can restore a bit of trust in the name of a more of a traditional IPO.

BRIAN SOZZI: Daniel, pretty large valuation on the company right now, last check close to $35 billion. What's on your plate this year? How are you going to keep investors happy? They're clearly putting a lot of confidence in you right out of the gate.

DANIEL DINES: We have one incredible momentum right now. We are the undisputed leader in this space. And many of our customers are making the strategic decisions that affect their digital transformation journey for three to five years. We believe we are in a great position to increase our market share in this burgeoning market. So I am really bullish about our ability to build a durable company and have sustainable growth over the coming years.

ADAM SHAPIRO: The software that you create-- among other things, repetitive office tasks and helping companies become more efficient-- how does the work from home future impact your company? Does it accelerate growth or does it, perhaps, slow it?

DANIEL DINES: Well, I would say that it will accelerate the growth. The awareness of -- the awareness of digital transformation has been tenfold increased by the pandemic. And realizing that you need to make contingency plans in the eventuality that all your employees are working from home has helped us tremendously to having a real conversation with our large enterprises.

We are able to have conversations at c level, at board level. And we are seeing automation as becoming a very strategic topic for many of our clients.

BRIAN SOZZI: How is the trend in enterprise spending today compared to three months ago?

DANIEL DINES: Well, I am not seeing a significant change. I would say that Q4 has been maybe a bit affected by the resurgence in COVID cases. We are seeing strong demand as ever. And from what we are able to see right now, we are confident in our ability to execute.

SEANA SMITH: Daniel, you started in an apartment., I believe, in Romania with just 10 people. That was only just over 15 years ago. And now here you are, a public company operating in 30 countries. You're going to get an influx of capital from going public. When you take a look at the growth plans or how you plan to scale your business, what does that look like?

DANIEL DINES: We continue to invest into our research and development and to our go-to-market teams. We are eyeing acquisitions across the automation space. This is quite a big space, and especially with the-- with infusing AI into our product, we are able to reduce the gap between human users and our software robots. So AI is especially a space that we are extremely interested in to bring more talent into our company and to accelerate our development plans.

BRIAN SOZZI: And, Daniel, as Seana mentioned, you started the company in Romania about, what, 10 employees out of an apartment-- can you imagine-- can you ever imagine that you would have been now a public company CEO? What does this moment mean for you?

DANIEL DINES: Well, you know, today was a bit of an emotional day. I was prepared to say in these media interviews that this is an amazing day. But I realized that we are facing, like, an experience of magic.

It was a bit of almost a religious experience. It's so highly improbable that we are here, that I'm not a religious person, but I believe it's somehow the hand of destiny here.

SEANA SMITH: Well, Daniel, we congratulate you. It's a huge day for you and the rest of your team. And we hope to have you back here on Yahoo Finance in the future. Daniel Dines, the CEO of UiPath-- and of course, our thanks to Brian Sozzi for bringing this interview for us.