Watch: Uniphore co-founder Ravi Saraogi on pandemic headwinds and growth

Conversational service automation platform Uniphore is on mark to reach $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) for the year 2021-22 on the back of expansion, increased adoption of digital transformation and strong net recurring revenues from its existing customer base, co-founder and president (APAC) Ravi Saraogi told TechCircle. 

The company which has signed five major multi-dollar multi-year deals in the last one year has seen 3X growth despite the impact of the pandemic on one its focus sector -- hospitality and airlines. The headwinds faced by the sector were more than compensated by the boom in consumer internet businesses such as edtech, food delivery and ecommerce, Saraogi said. 

Founded in 2008 by Saraogi and Umesh Sachdev as part of the IIT Madras Incubator, Uniphore has come a long way to serve contact centres with their technology capabilities in speech recognition, voice biometrics, artificial intelligence and machine learning, robotic process automation and video-AI. 

The company which has a presence in over 13 countries raised $140 million in Series D round in March led by Sorensen Capital Partners. The company will utilise the capital to expand to the European market, go deeper in existing markets, hire executives and technology teams and evaluate M&As. 

“Even before the funding round we acquired the RPA technology from NTT Data Services, and topped it up with the acquisition of Emotion Research Lab,” said Saraogi adding that the company will look at acqui-hires as well as inorganic growth in new geographies and capabilities, and raise additional capital for the same, if needed.