Conversational AI Startup Uniphore Raises $51M in Series C Round
Conversational AI is a fast-booming space for a lot of companies these days. Uniphore, a global conversational AI technology company in the U.S., India and Singapore announced that it raised $51M in Series C funding led by March Capital Partners, with participation from Chiratae Ventures (formerly IDG Ventures), Sistema Asia, CXO Fund, ITP, Iron Pillar, Patni Family, along with other investors. The new round of funding is Uniphore’s largest to date and marks one of the biggest funding rounds in the conversational AI sector in the past recent time. Uniphore will deploy the money to expedite its go-to-market in North America, invest in R&D for the next wave of innovation on its platform and grow its talented employee base globally. “Today’s announcement of our Series C funding represents a major milestone for Uniphore and the Conversational AI market as a whole. This funding will accelerate our vision to redefine customer service through AI-enabled Conversational Service Automation (CSA). We have always been strong innovators, and our global customers continue to rely on our solutions to help them deliver exceptional customer service. With this new round of funding, we will be able to accelerate our global expansion and better serve our customers by developing and delivering innovative CSA solutions to more organisations around the world,” said Umesh Sachdev, CEO and Co-founder, Uniphore. Uniphore says its vision is to bridge the gap between people and machines through voice. The company enables businesses globally to deliver transformational customer service by providing a platform of conversational analytics, conversational assistant and conversational security to transform the way enterprises engage their consumers, build loyalty and realize efficiencies. In 2018, the company experienced 300% year-over-year growth and the year prior to that. Some of Uniphore’s customers include BNP Paribas, NTT Data, and PNB MetLife. “Uniphore recognised early on that the customer service industry had fundamental limitations which were not being addressed. Brands were not building meaningful relationships with their customers because they were simply reacting, rather than being proactive. Uniphore’s conversational AI technology is changing the way brands are serving and engaging with their customers. Uniphore’s unique technology enables a proactive approach by recognizing the true intent of customer calls and  predicting what is coming next. Uniphore is not only anticipating what the future of customer service will be – they are leading the charge, and we look forward to working closely with them as they continue to innovate. We are excited to be part of the journey of a world-class team building globally competitive products at Uniphore,” said Sumant MandalMD, March Capital Partners. Most recently, Uniphore CEO Umesh Sachdev moved to Silicon Valley to increase the company’s reach in North America, leading the way for many strategic new hires. Annie Weckesser, veteran of Cisco and NIO, joined the company as Chief Marketing and People Officer in April this year. Additionally, in May, Jafar Syed, joined as Chief Strategy & Growth Officer from NTT Data, and in June, Karen Smith, former executive at Directly and Convergys, started with Uniphore as Chief Revenue Officer.  Additionally, Mary Ann Bianco joined as Chief Customer Officer after leading customer success for Oracle’s Cloud SaaS applications business. In July, Ashwin Chalapathy joined as Managing Director in India and Senior Vice President, Services, Asia Pacific. John Chambers, CEO and founder of JC2 Ventures, and an active advisor to Uniphore, who picked up a 10% stake in Uniphore in 2017, stated: “Uniphore’s continued success is a testament to the company’s ability to predict the next market transition and evolve the business model based on that insight promptly. Uniphore’s innovative conversational AI solutions address the growing needs of businesses to provide personalized customer experiences more efficiently and effectively. I believe Umesh and his team are well positioned to revolutionize the customer service industry while continuing to expand the market share. I echo March Capital’s sentiment that the future is extremely bright for Uniphore.”
Conversational AI is a fast-booming space for a lot of companies these days. Uniphore, a global conversational AI technology company in the U.S., India and Singapore announced that it raised $51M in Series C funding led by March Capital Partners, with participation from Chiratae Ventures (formerly IDG Ventures), Sistema Asia, CXO Fund, ITP, Iron Pillar, […]
Uniphore, a global conversational AI technology has raised $51M in Series C funding led by March Capital Partners, with participation from Chiratae Ventures (formerly IDG Ventures), Sistema Asia, CXO Fund, ITP, Iron Pillar, Patni Family, along with other investors.
["Conversational AI"]
["Go", "API", "funding", "AI", "ETL", "innovation", "automation", "Conversational AI", "analytics", "GAN", "R"]
["AI", "analytics", "R", "Go", "API", "ETL", "GAN", "automation", "innovation", "funding"]
Vishal Chawla is a senior tech journalist at Analytics India Magazine and writes about AI, data analytics, cybersecurity, cloud computing, and blockchain. Vishal also hosts AIM's video podcast called Simulated Reality- featuring tech leaders, AI experts, and innovative startups of India.