Infosys co-founder Kris invests in software firm

Infosys Ltd co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan invested in Uniphore Software Systems, a Chennai-based speech recognition solutions firm, along with other investors, the company said on Thursday.

"The first round (series A) of funding will fuel our global expansion and product and core technology development plans," Uniphore said in a statement here but did not disclose the amount Gopalakrishnan and others invested.

The company's solutions extend the power of speech to revolutionise human-machine interaction and allow any software application to understand and respond to natural human speech.

"Continuing on my theme of backing inclusive innovations, I am optimistic of the success of Uniphore. As man-machine communication is a complex problem to solve, the software firm's vision lends possibility of finding a solution to it (problem)," Gopalakrishnan said.

Uniphore's solutions include voice biometrics, virtual assistant and speech analytics that change the way enterprises engage their consumers, build loyalty and maintain healthy bottom-line.

"Kris' involvement gives us confidence to transform dream into reality. His experience in building global businesses will help us move in the right direction," said Uniphore's co-founder and chief executive Umesh Sachdev.

Observing that investment by the likes of Gopalakrishnan was an endorsement of the company's ability to provide measurable value to enterprise customers across industries through speech recognition technology, Sachdev said the fund would help attract best of the talent the industry had to offer in the area.

Incubated in IIT Chennai in 2008, Uniphore developed integrated and smart speech recognition applications that attracted customers from verticals such as banking, insurance, agriculture, healthcare, government and back offices.

Other investors include IDG Ventures India, India Angel Network, Ray Stata, Analog Devices, and YourNest Angel Fund.