March Capital leads $51 million Series C in conversational AI startup Uniphore

Conversational Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology company Uniphore has raised $51 million in a Series C funding round led by March Capital Partners. The round also saw participation from Chiratae Ventures, Sistema Asia, CXO Fund, ITP, Iron Pillar and the Patni Family among other investors. 

California based March Capital had invested $15.74 million in July, valuing the company at $131-$135 million.  

Prior to the latest infusion, Uniphore’s last reported round was in November 2017 when it raised an undisclosed sum from Cisco’s then executive-chairman John Chambers’ J2C Ventures, IIFL and IDG Ventures India (now liken as Chiratae). 

The Palo Alto and Chennai based company will utilise the current round to accelerate its growth in the North American market apart from investing in research and development and expanding its employee base. 

“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),” said Umesh Sachdev, CEO of Uniphore in a statement. It counts the likes of BNP Paribas, NTT Data and PNB MetLife among its customers.

Founded in 2008 by Jaypee University of Information Technology graduates Sachdev and Ravi Saraogi, Uniphore has doubled down on its expansion in North America with Sachdev moving to Silicon Valley recently. 

The company has also on-boarded key strategic hires as part of the same, including chief marketing and people officer Annie Weckesser who was previously with NIO and Cisco, chief strategy and growth officer Jafar Syed from NTT Data among others. The company also appointed Ashwin Chalapathy as managing director India and senior vice president of services in Asia Pacific in July. 

“Uniphore recognized 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,” said Sumant Mandal, managing director at March Capital Partners in a statement. He further added, “Uniphore’s unique technology enables a proactive approach by recognizing the true intent of customer calls and  predicting what is coming next.”