Chennai Based Speech Recognition Solutions Startup Uniphore Grabs Funding From Kris Gopalakrishnan

Chennai-based speech recognition solutions company, Uniphore Software Systems, secured an undisclosed amount of Series A round of funding from Infosys Co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan.

Its existing investors IDG Ventures India, Indian Angel Network (IAN), Yournest Fund, and Stata Venture Partners also participated in the round.

The startup plans to utilize the funds in global expansion and product & core technology development.

Commenting over the investment Kris Gopalakrishnan said, “Continuing on my theme of backing inclusive innovations, I am optimistic of the success of Uniphore.” Man-machine communication is one of the more complex problems to solve in which Uniphore’s vision has lend the possibility of finding a solution to this difficult problem and the company has already made substantial progress,” he added.

Incubated at IIT Chennai in 2008 and founded by Umesh Sachdev, Uniphore provides solutions that extend the power of speech to revolutionize human-machine interaction. Its software application helps understand and respond to natural human speech enabling humans to use the most natural of communication modes, speech, to engage and instruct machines.

Uniphore’s solutions include voice biometrics, virtual assistant, and speech analytics. It has offices in India, Philippines and U.A.E with a headcount of 80, spread across all locations.

The startup claims to have more than 70 enterprise customers and over 4 million end users. It’s disruptive solution has robust intellectual property with six patents on technology stack.

Umesh Sachdev, Co-founder and CEO, Uniphore Software Systems said, “This investment is a powerful endorsement of Uniphore’s ability to provide unique and measurable value to our enterprise customers across industries through speech recognition technology. Additionally, these Series-A funds help us attract the best talent the industry has to offer.”

Earlier, Uniphore had raised $1 Mn funding from its existing investors. Besides, it also received grant of $100,000 during its incubation from the National Research Development Corporation in 2008.

After stepping down from Infosys, Kris Gopalakrishnan has invested in startups like Freshworld, farm-to-fork and JetSynthesys.