Kris Gopalakrishnan invests in Chennai-based Uniphore Software

The company is into speech recognition solutions business targeting enterprise customers

Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan has invested into Chennai-based speech recognition solutions firm Uniphore Software Systems. The investment, of an undisclosed amount, is part of the Series A fund raising of the company, which has been announced as closed now.

The funding is to support the company's global expansion and product and core technology development plans. The company is into offering solutions for human-machine interaction, allowing any software application to underestand and respond to natural human speech. The solutions would enable humans to use speech to engage and instruct machines.

Gopalakrishnan said: "Continuing on my theme of backing inclusive innovations, I am optimistic of the success of Uniphore. Man-Machine communication is one of the more complex problems to solve. Uniphore's vision lends possibility of finding a solution to this very difficult problem and the company has already made substantial progress."

Kris Gopalakrishnan's experience in building mammoth and global businesses will help the company to move in the right direction, said Umesh Sachdev, Co-founder and CEO, Uniphore Software Systems.

"These Series A funds help us attract the best of the talent the industry has to offer in this high-tech niche. I am sure all my colleagues realise that every day at work we are turning sci-fi into reality," he said.

The existing investors also invested in the Series A, said the company. Prior to the Series A round, Uniphore had received investment from IDG Ventures India, India Angel Network, Ray Stata, Co-Founder and Chairman of the Board of Analog Devices, Inc and YourNest Angel Fund and also seed investment from IIT Madras' Rural Technology and Business Incubator (RTBI), Villgro Innovations Foundation, and the National Research Development Corporation.

The company's solutions include voice biometrics, virtual assistant and speech analytics that change the way enterprises engage their consumers, said the company. It has pioneered in development of integrated and smart speech-recognition applications and has customers across many industries, including banking, insurance, BPOs, Agriculture, Lending/MFI, Heathcare and Government.

Launched in 2008, Uniphore is also one of the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 company in India for the year 2014 and has been profitable from the second year of its operation. The company currently has offices in India, Philippines and U.A.E with 80 employees spread across all locations. It has worked with over 70 enterprise customers and served over 4 million end users. It was recognized by Deloitte as a Technology Fast 500 company in Asia Pacific and Technology Fast 50 company in India in 2014 and was also ranked as the 17th fastest growing technology company in India by Deloitte Fast 50 in 2012.