India-based speech recognition experts get funding to add more languages

Sunny Rao (left) and Umesh Sachdev from Uniphore pictured at a 2012 event, launching voice biometrics for banks with Nuance.

Speech recognition experts Uniphore have secured an undisclosed amount of funding, reports the Economic Times today. The investment comes from the Indian Angel Network, YourNest Angel Fund, and Stata Venture Partners’ founder Ray Stata.

Uniphore make speech recognition tools for five international languages, but the Chennai startup’s speciality area is India’s numerous native languages – it has 14 of those covered. Like with Apple’s Siri or Google Now, the software understands natural human speech.

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The funding round for the six-year-old startup will help it expands to more countries and other languages – particularly those in the Middle East and Southeast Asia .

Unlike Siri, Uniphore’s speech recognition savvy isn’t being ploughed into a mobile assistant app. Instead it’s designed to be deployed in areas like mobile-based social marketing, voice banking backed up by voice biometric authentication, and enterprise management. One example is Uniphore’s mForce, which allows on-the-road workers – especially sales agents – to input new data (such as a sales lead) by talking into an app rather than fiddling with entering data into text boxes on their mobile screen.

(Source: Economic Times)

(Editing by Josh Horwitz)