Microsoft acquires process automation specialist Mint

Microsoft has announced the acquisition of Mint, a process automation company, for an undisclosed fee.

The acquisition is aimed at supporting digital transformation strategies with automated insights from operational data.

Mint was originally set up in Slovakia but is now headquartered in Amsterdam, with sub-offices in New York and London. The firm develops and sells process automation technology, which is used for data analytics. Its systems monitor and measure 'event' data to give a business a detailed overview of how certain parts of its operations perform. This can be used for machinery, software, or even its people.

It's considered a lucrative market, likely to be worth over $11 billion by 2030, according to estimates from Polaris Market Research. It's also an area that Microsoft has previously invested in, with acquisitions of robotic process automation startup Softmotion back in 2020.

With Mint, the plan is to "further empower" customers in their digital transformation journeys by providing a more complete picture of their processes, according to Microsoft.

"Our customers will be able to better understand their process data, uncover what operations look like in reality, and drive process standardisation and improvement across the entire organisation to ensure compliance at every step," Justin Graham, Microsoft's general manager of process insights, wrote in a post.

For Mint and its own customers, however, there isn't much detail about what comes next. CEO James Dening has said that the level of support and engagement it offers its users "will stay the same". He also quoted co-founder Rasto Hlavac who said that the Microsoft acquisition would result in positive outcomes on "a different scale", in a post on the company's website.

Denning then signed off the message with "there's nothing I can add to that".