John Chambers, Executive Chairman of the US India Business Council (USIBC), has picked up 10 per cent stake in Chennai-based speech analytics firm Uniphore Software Systems, the company announced on Thursday.

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This is Chambers` first investment in a startup outside of the US.

"The company was able to foresee the growing need for deep technology in the area of speech recognition and has innovated ahead of the market to capture this significant opportunity," Chambers said.

"I am a big believer in India and its potential for producing globally relevant startups like Uniphore," added Chambers, who is also the Chairman of US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) and Cisco Executive Chairman.

The Series B round of funding also saw participation from existing investors including IDG Ventures who led the previous round.

Uniphore will utilise new funds to deepen core research driving product enhancement, upgrade its customer service infrastructure, expand its sales reach to newer geographies and recruit new talent to support its rapid growth.

"We are humbled by John`s concurrence to be Chief Guru at Uniphore. It is our good fortune to have an industry veteran like John invest in the future of Uniphore," said Umesh Sachdev, Co-founder and CEO of Uniphore Software Systems.

"His experience in building a globally leading IT company that adds incalculable value to Uniphore," he added.

Headquarted in IIT Madras Research Park, Uniphore Software Systems was incubated in 2008 and currently has offices in India, Singapore and the UAE with nearly 100 employees.

Uniphore has worked with over 70 enterprise customers and served over four million end users.

The company was recognised by Deloitte as a Technology Fast 500 company in Asia Pacific in 2014 and was also ranked as the 10th fastest growing technology company in the country by "Deloitte Fast 50" in 2015.

Uniphore`s speech analytics product "auMina" and virtual assistant product "akeira" are attracting attention and winning customers in geographies outside India.

Globally, as the speech analytics and the virtual assistant verticals are estimated to grow by 2021 to a combined size more than $10 billion and, according to Sachdev, Uniphore has established a clear leadership in both these verticals.