JOHN CHAMBERS ACQUIRES 10% IN UNIPHORE SOFTWARE

NEWDELHI: John Chambers, executive chairman of Cisco Inc and chairman of the recently-formed US-India Strategic Partnership Forum( US IS PF ), has picked up a 10% stake in speech recognition solutions company Uniphore Software Systems Pvt. Ltd in his personal capacity.

Chennai-based Uniphore, which made it to the list of winners in the 2016 India edition of the “Innovators Under 35”, is headed by co-founder and CEO Umesh Sachdev.

During his keynote at Em Tech India 2016, Chambers had said India’s “startup ecosystem” is “an important growth engine”. “If you want to do a startup, this is the right time, the inflection point has just happened in India.”

Chambers had simultaneously committedto mentora few startups that had made it to the India “Innovators Under 35” 2016 list, and had followed up with a couple of video-conferencing sessions to make good his promise. “The investment in Uniphore is a logical outcome of those meetings,” Chambers said on Thursday.

“I am a big believer in India and its potential for producing globally relevant startups like U nip ho re. I have been impressed with U mesh’ s leadership and passion for improving customer experience ,” said Chambers, who plans to invest in “2-3 more cutting-edge startups”.

He has been given the title “Chief Guru” in Uniphore.

Uniphore offers speech authentication and recognition products, which help government and companies reach rural customers by interacting with them in vernacular languages.