Uniphore Software Systems Pvt. Ltd said on Tuesday it has raised $51 million (Rs 363 crore) in a Series C funding round led by March Capital Partners.
Chiratae Ventures, Sistema Asia, CXO Fund, Iron Pillar and the Patni family have also invested, the Chennai- and California-based conversational artificial intelligence startup said in a statement.
The new round is Uniphore’s largest to date, the startup said. It added that it will use the funds to accelerate its go-to-market plans in North America, invest in research and development and grow its employee base globally.
“This funding will accelerate our vision to redefine customer service through AI-enabled conversational service automation,” said Umesh Sachdev, CEO and co-founder, Uniphore.
March Capital managing director Sumant Mandal said Uniphore’s conversational AI technology is changing the way brands are engaging with customers.
The announcement comes a little over a month after media reports said that the company had raised $38 million in the Series C round.
Apart from VC firms, Uniphore counts at least two technology industry veterans as its investors—Infosys Ltd co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan and former Cisco Systems Inc. chairman John Chambers.
Chambers, now CEO and founder of JC2 Ventures, had picked up a 10% stake in Uniphore in 2017 as part of the startup’s Series B funding round.
Uniphore was founded in 2008 by Jaypee University of Information Technology alumni Umesh Sachdev and Ravi Saraogi. The startup provides a suite of software-as-a-service products targeting conversational analytics, assistants and conversational security, among others. It counts BNP Paribas, NTT Data and PNB MetLife among its customers.
Sachdev has now moved to Silicon Valley to expand the company’s business in North America. The company has also hired a number of senior executives in recent months. These include Cisco veteran Annie Weckesser as the chief marketing and people officer in April and NTT Data’s Jafar Syed as chief strategy and growth officer. In July, Ashwin Chalapathy joined as managing director in India.
