YourNest exists from Uniphore, to get 7X return

Chennai-based Uniphore Software Systems, a maker of speech recognition software, where John Chambers leads Series B funding.

Founded by Ravi Saraogi and Umesh Sachdev in 2008, Uniphore develops solutions in speech analytics and virtual assistant verticals and has offices in Chennai, Bengaluru, Singapore, and Palo Alto. The company is also planning to raise another round in the next 6-9 months which may be used to provide an exit to its other early investors.

YourNest had first invested in Uniphore in 2014 from its maiden fund, a Rs 90 crore investment vehicle. It had pumped in an estimated Rs 8 crore across rounds in the Palo Alto, California and Chennai-based company for a 5% stake.

John has been mentoring Umesh (Sachdev, CEO of Uniphore) since July 2016 and has provided a lot of great learnings for both him and several other Indian entrepreneurs,” said Sunil Goyal, managing director of YourNest Angel fund.

As per the report, Sunil goyal has sold its entire stake in conversational artificial intelligence technology startup Uniphore, in the process, marking the Gurugram-based early-stage venture capital firm’s maiden exit.

Uniphore has delivered a seven-fold exit to one of its early backers, YourNest Venture Capital. Through Uniphore, the early-stage fund has marked its maiden exit and has sold its entire 5% stake in the company. Girish Shivani, co-founder of YourNest, said that the fund has received an exit of Rs 55 crore for the Rs 8 crore it infused in the company across several financing rounds.

As per the report, Uniphore had closed its Series C financing round by securing $51 million led by California-based March Capital Partners in August 2019. Other investors who put money in the John Chamber-backed company in its Series C round and have possibly picked up YourNest’s stake are Sistema Asia, CXO Fund, ITP, Chiratae Ventures Iron Pillar and Patni Family.