UiPath shares fell 30% after the company announced a CEO change

Daines co-founded UiPath in 2005 with Marius Tirka. The company makes software that automates repetitive and “menial” tasks, but its shares have suffered under Enslin’s sole leadership. Shares are down 26% year to date, after the company made its 2021 debut in one of the largest U.S. software initial public offerings ever.

The company reported fiscal first-quarter earnings on Wednesday, with revenue growing 16% year over year to $335 million, better than LSEG’s estimate of $333 million. UiPath also beat the bottom line, with adjusted EPS of 13 cents versus LSEG’s estimate of 12 cents per share.

UiPath’s per-share loss improved to 5 cents from 6 cents in the same period last year.

CFO Ashim Gupta also warned that sales cycles for larger, multi-year deals were long and that clients were subjecting UiPath to “increased deal scrutiny,” and that these factors combined with a leadership shake-up impacted its updated full-year guidance.

The company lowered its full-year revenue guidance. It now expects revenue to fall between $1.405 billion and $1.41 billion, compared to the prior quarter’s guidance of $1.55 billion to $1.56 billion.

Enslin joined UiPath from Google Cloud. Daines praised him at the time as an executive with “the right balance of experience and skills” and an operational background to grow UiPath, leaving Daines free to focus on “culture, vision and product innovation.”

Daines’ decision to appoint a COO was one that many founders would make. For example, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg did something similar in the case of former COO Sheryl Sandberg, a move that is credited with catalyzing the company into maturity.

Ensulin did not have the same effect. UiPath shares, except for a brief post-IPO surge, have never traded above their debut price. The stock is down nearly 76% from its May 2021 IPO.

— CNBC’s Ari Levy contributed to this report.