Bloomberg reports on August 13 that Uniphore, an Indian conversational AI startup, is raising $51 million ( Rs. 365 crores approximately) in funding from March Capital Partners and Chiratae Ventures. 

Uniphore, based in Chennai with offices in Palo Alto, California, plans to bring AI to call centres. The company founded by Umesh Sachdev and Ravi Sarogi in 2008 plans to replace workers with machines in the labour-intensive $350 billion call centre industry. 

“This is one of the largest rounds in an area of deep tech already seeing a lot of investor activity,” CEO Sachdev said in a telephone interview with Bloomberg. “It represents the coming of age of conversational AI.”

Conversational AIs and chatbots have been taking over customer support and similar operations that required human operators till now. It is estimated that by 2021, about 70% of organizations will integrate AI to assist employee productivity. In 2018, Deloitte Technology Fast 50 India identified Uniphore as the 17th fastest growing technology company in India and one of the top 500 fastest growing companies in the Asia Pacific.

In the early five rounds of funding, Uniphore has raised over $8.8 M with John Chambers, IDG ventures, IIFL, YourNest Angel Fund, and Indian Angel Network being the major investors. Uniphore will use freshly added funds to invest in research and development and accelerate expansion across markets in North America. The startup plans to increase its engineering and development operations to 200 employees in India by the year-end, while another 60 will be based in the U.S. and 40 in Europe and the Asia Pacific, writes Bloomberg.