Speech recognition solutions company Uniphore raises funding from IDG Ventures

Chennai-based speech recognition solutions company Uniphore today announced that it has received a new investment from IDG Ventures. They had earlier raised their Series A round from Kris Gopalakrishnan (Co-founder of Infosys) and prior to that they had received investment from IDG Ventures India, India Angel Network, Ray Stata, Co-founder and Chairman of the Board of Analog Devices, Inc. and YourNest Angel Fund among others in 2014.

Uniphore, a 2012 MobiSparks company, was co-founded by Umesh Yadav and Ravi Saraogi and is head-quartered in IIT Madras Research Park, Chennai. They had raised seed investment from IIT Madras’ Rural Technology and Business Incubator (RTBI), Villgro Innovations Foundation, and the National Research Development Corporation and was incubated in IIT Madras (Chennai), India, in 2008. They currently have offices in India, Philippines and the UAE with 80 employees spread across all locations. Umesh, Co-founder and CEO, Uniphore Software Systems, added, "IDG Ventures have deep experience of investing and mentoring world-class companies and having them as an investor is an enormous vote of confidence in Uniphore’s ability to emerge as a leader of its niche."

Nagaraja Prakasam, Uniphore Board member and IAN investor, who led the previous investment round said,

Uniphore’s vision of using voice to bring digital revolution to non-English speaking audience is what attracted me. I'm glad that within 13 months of our investment, the company has achieved significant growth and attracted this new round of investment. This investment paves way to Uniphore becoming a global leader.

Uniphore’s solutions extend the power of speech to revolutionize human-machine interaction allowing any software application to understand and respond to natural human speech. Their solutions for voice biometrics, virtual speech assistant and speech analytics aim to change the way enterprises engage their consumers, build loyalty and maintain a healthy bottom-line. Uniphore has pioneered the development of integrated and smart speech-recognition applications and boasts a roster of high profile customers across many industries, including banking, insurance, BPOs, agriculture, lending/MFI, healthcare and government. This investment will help Uniphore scale its core technology development efforts and expand its reach and presence in multiple markets across the globe.

Commenting on the investment, Ranjith Menon, Senior Vice President with IDG Ventures, said,

Combination of voice and analytics is a very interesting concept. We are very excited at the opportunity to partner with Umesh and team as they take this platform globally.

Detailed read from 2012: Uniphore- Providing Speech Based Mobility Solutions