Qualitest, a software testing and quality assurance company, has acquired AI and machine learning company AlgoTrace, marking the first step of Qualitest’s growth strategy following an investment from the private equity group Bridgepoint earlier this year.
The investment terms were not disclosed at the time, but news outlets placed the purchase price for Bridgepoint's majority stake in Qualitest at about $420 million.
Qualitest's acquisition of AlgoTrace will allow the testing and QA company to expand the number of AI-powered testing solutions available to clients, as well as develop its capabilities in assisting companies test and launch new AI-powered solutions with greater confidence and speed. As software grows in complexity and the pressure to launch faster and more frequently increases, according to Gartner, companies that do not use AI to enhance their Quality Assurance will be at a significant disadvantage.
AlgoTrace’s machine learning tools help brands answer business critical questions as they launch new software: what, where, when, and how to test and in what order to ensure consistently high quality. With multiple clients already using Qualitest’s suite of AI-testing tools, this expansion of capabilities creates opportunities not only for new Qualitest clients, but also allows for the growth of existing relationships with current customers around the world.
Qualitest began working with the AlgoTrace team more than a year ago, with AlgoTrace’s AI platform powering Qualitest’s test predictor tool, which applies pioneering autonomous AI capabilities and predictive modeling to unstructured data without the need for code or complex interfaces. Following multiple successful joint projects, the teams saw that, together, they would be able to apply AlgoTrace’s powerful prediction engine in a variety of ways across the software development lifecycle to improve quality and speed to market.
“Applying AI to quality engineering is a perfect fit," said Norm Merritt, CEO of Qualitest. "Just as software becomes increasingly complex, the companies producing it are under competitive pressure to increase the speed and frequency of their rollouts. AI is the only way companies can scale software testing and quality engineering and the AlgoTrace team have shown that they understand this. In our view, companies that do not use AI to improve quality will be at a significant disadvantage.”
To learn more about Qualitest, visit www.qualitestgroup.com.