John Chambers Becomes Uniphore’s Chief Guru

Uniphore Software Systems, the software product vendor in the speech analytics and virtual assistant verticals  announced that it has successfully closed its Series B round of funding. The series saw participation from most existing investors including IDG Ventures who led the previous round. The highlight of the Series B round was substantial participation by John Chambers, Chairman of USISPF and Executive Chairman of Cisco. Mr. Chambers, a celebrated information technology sector leader and influencer, has made the investment in his personal capacity. This is Chambers’ first investment in a startup outside of the United States.

 Uniphore will utilize these new funds to deepen core research driving product enhancement, upgrade its customer service infrastructure, expand its sales reach to newer geographies and recruit new talent to support its rapid growth.

 Umesh Sachdev, Co-founder and CEO of Uniphore Software Systems, welcoming John to the marquee list of Uniphore investors, said, “We are humbled by John’s concurrence to be Chief Guru at Uniphore. It is our good fortune to have an industry veteran like John invest in the future of Uniphore. While John’s monetary investment is certainly important to the company, it is his vast and varied experience building a globally leading IT company that adds incalculable value to Uniphore and I am certain that the company will gain immensely from his counsel and guidance.”

 Commenting on the investment, Chambers said, “I am a big believer in India and its potential for producing globally relevant startups like Uniphore. The company was able to foresee the growing need for deep technology in the area of speech recognition and has innovated ahead of the market to capture this significant opportunity. During my time working with and mentoring Umesh, I have been impressed with his leadership and passion for improving customer experiences, and his ability to build a world-class team of software experts. I’m looking forward to continuing to work closely with Umesh and the Uniphore team to help them realize their ambitions.”

 Uniphore is one of the rare Indian companies that offer enterprise class software products built on sophisticated research driven breakthroughs. Uniphore’s products are bringing new capabilities in the technically difficult area of speech recognition and natural language processing. Uniphore’s speech analytics product auMina and virtual assistant product akeira are acknowledged leaders in India and are now attracting attention and winning customers in geographies outside India.

 Commenting on the market potential of its products Umesh elaborated, “Globally, the speech analytics and the virtual assistant verticals are estimated to grow by 2021 to a combined size more than $10 bn. Uniphore has established a clear leadership in both these verticals and we firmly believe that our research led product development strategy sets us up nicely to win a significant share of these growing verticals.”