Perforce Acquires 21 Labs, an AI-Based Scriptless Mobile Testing Provider

MINNEAPOLIS, MAY 17, 2021 – Perforce Software, (“Perforce”), a provider of solutions to enterprise teams requiring productivity, visibility, and scale along the development lifecycle, backed by Clearlake Capital Group, L.P. (together with its affiliates, “Clearlake”) and Francisco Partners, announced today that it has acquired 21 Labs, an AI-based mobile testing provider that helps businesses deliver quality software faster.

As Perforce’s second scriptless testing acquisition, 21 Labs will further strengthen the company’s portfolio of automated testing solutions. Following the recently announced Perfecto Scriptless solution for no-code web testing and the addition of virtual devices, the Perfecto platform now offers the only complete set of digital tools for mobile and web environments available today.

“In today’s crowded testing market, enterprises are looking for a comprehensive, reliable solution that addresses the testing lifecycle across all digital channels, from creation, to execution, to analysis. Together with 21 Labs, we’re able to do just that – being the first to provide organizations with a complete continuous testing solution for mobile and web that quickly delivers combined, AI-driven insights to improve application quality and directly impact the success of their businesses,” said Mark Ties, CEO and President, Perforce. “21 Labs further advances our mission to help customers deliver innovation at speed and at scale.”

As the industry continues to shift-left, enterprises struggle with automating QA and speeding the feedback loop from development and testing to ensure a quality user experience. Challenged by the unique skill sets needed to implement test automation throughout the software delivery lifecycle, businesses require a seamless, user-friendly platform that will help streamline testing so they can focus their time and energy on innovation.  

“Together, Perforce’s portfolio of intelligent test automation solutions and 21 Labs’ AI-based technology will help customers solve their hardest DevOps challenges. The skill set gap, integration complexity, and lengthy test creation and maintenance cycles are a sore spot for enterprises. These are further amplified in mobile due to the different development frameworks and the fragmentation of devices and operating systems. Companies can now achieve continuous testing in weeks vs. months or years through a self-learning and framework-agnostic intelligent test creation and maintenance platform,” said Shani Shoham, CEO and Founder, 21 Labs. “By joining forces with Perforce, we will be able to see out our vision of leveraging data to make QA more autonomous and close the feedback loop between development and production.”

“Apps are often the face of a business and an innovative, always-improving experience is vital to customer engagement,” said Tim Russell, Chief Product Officer, Perforce. “21 Labs’ technology expands our offering to ensure enterprises are able to find and fix errors so they can deliver innovative quality experiences, faster.” 

21 Labs’ framework-agnostic, self-learning, and auto-maintenance test automation engine leverages AI and visual analysis to help customers quickly author mobile tests in a code-free environment on real or virtual devices. Today, the solution is integrated with the Perfecto Intelligent Test Automation platform, allowing users to execute their tests and analyze results with confidence.

To learn more about the Perfecto Platform for Web and Mobile Testing, click here.

Lincoln International served as the exclusive financial advisor to Perforce on this transaction.