Another unicorn for India

The latest is Chennai and Palo Alto, California-headquartered Uniphore, which develops conversational AI solutions. On Wednesday, the startup announced that it has secured a whopping $400 million in its Series E round led by venture capital firm NEA.

Thursday February 17, 2022 , 3 min Read

In 47 days, 2022 has already seen nine Indian startups enter the unicorn club.

The latest is Chennai and Palo Alto, California-headquartered Uniphore, which develops conversational AI solutions. On Wednesday, the startup announced that it has secured a whopping $400 million in its Series E round led by venture capital firm NEA.

The company is now valued at $2.5 billion. Founded by Umesh Sachdev and Ravi Saraogi in 2008, Uniphore was incubated at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras.

For the last 13 years, the company has been developing conversational AI solutions that help enterprises understand their customers’ needs and enhance their offerings and experiences.

Uniphore plans to use the fresh capital to boost its voice AI, computer vision, and tonal emotion solutions, as well as to expand its business operations globally, specifically in North America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific. Read more.

The Interview

“Gehoon se aata banna hai toh chakki ke neeche toh jaana padega,” tells Zakir Khan at YourStory's Creators Inc. Conference, as he references the trials and challenges he faced in his journey before his eventual success and bares his soul, talking about his life, growth, success, failures, and most importantly - love.

Also, wait until Zakir recites yours, ours, and his favourite shayaris baring his soul with us at YourStory's Creators Inc.

Editor’s Pick: The 13-year-old entrepreneur from Shark Tank India

Thirteen-year-old Anoushka Jolly is the founder of the Anti-Bullying Squad (ABS), an anti-bullying venture that has also developed an app, Kavach. She recently won Rs 50 lakh in funding at Shark Tank India. Anoushka is the youngest participant to pitch on the show. Read more.

Startup Spotlight

A credit line app for college students

Bengaluru-based fintech startup PayCrunch is a microloan lending app targeting teenagers and college students. It offers credit through UPI, and aims to make financial management easier by helping track transactions. Read more.

News & Updates

Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon, invested in Lumos, a D2C SaaS startup that provides a Shopify-like solution, based out of Indonesia. The funding was made through his personal investment firm, Bezos Expedition. Bezos joined the latest Series C investment round of about $80 million, together with Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital India.

Texas, US-based cybersecurity company Securonix raised $1 billion led by investment firm Vista Equity Partners, which specialises in financing software, data, and technology businesses. The round also saw participation from returning investors Volition Capital and Eight Roads Ventures.

Tata Group will soon unveil its strategy to digitally reach consumers across various categories by bringing assets together, Mukesh Bansal, President of Tata Digital, said. It is building a super app, which can bring its multiple consumer-facing businesses onto a single platform.