Enterprise artificial intelligence company Uniphore Technologies Inc. has cemented its transition from call center intelligence to providing a foundation for business AI after closing on a hefty $260 million round of funding today.

The Series F investment was led by some illustrious technology companies, including Nvidia Corp., Snowflake Inc., Databricks Inc. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc., as well as top tier investors like NEA, March Capital, BNF Capital, National Grid Partners and Prosperity 7. The round brings Uniphore’s valuation to a cool $2.5 billion, reflecting its ability to help businesses of all sizes get more out of their AI investments.

Uniphore’s Business AI Cloud is a sovereign and secure platform for AI operations that melds the simplicity of consumer-focused chatbots with enterprise-grade security and scalability, making it a solid foundation for companies to unify their data with AI agents and models. The company was once laser-focused on call center intelligence, building AI agents and virtual assistants that helped companies to transform their call center operations, automating mundane tasks and handing off more complex problems to human operators. As it developed this platform, it soon realized that its technology was perfectly suited to other kinds of AI agents.

The Uniphore Business AI Cloud consists of a composable data layer that can connect to any application or cloud in order to query and prepare information where it lives, without moving it first. There’s also a knowledge layer, which structures and contextualizes enterprise data so it can be transformed into “knowledge” that’s used to fine-tune AI models and agents.

The model layer applies enterprise safety guardrails to third-party large language models companies want to use, while the agentic layer provides access to a selection of prebuilt AI agents together with orchestration capabilities, enabling companies to quickly start automating work across sales, marketing, services, human resources and other areas.

Uniphore says it can provide enormous assistance to enterprises, because many face significant problems in getting value out of their AI investments, due to data bottlenecks, issues with data sovereignty, the disconnect between information technology teams and regular workers, and a lack of compatibility with AI tools and existing IT stacks.

The Business AI Cloud is designed to overcome all of these challenges. It solves the data bottleneck and sovereignty issues by enabling companies to store information in any cloud or on-premises, so enterprises can keep all of their information in one place and avoid falling foul of regulatory issues. The platform is also highly composable, meaning it can integrate into existing technology and data stacks, and it’s extremely secure too, embedding AI guardrails to control model behavior, adversarial prompt defense and observability tools.

A springboard for enterprise AI adoption

Databricks Ventures Vice President Andrew Ferguson said he’s backing the company because he’s seen that enterprises are eager to move beyond standard generative AI applications and dive into agentic automation, but struggle to take this step due to all sorts of friction. “Uniphore’s Business AI Cloud helps organizations streamline data access, model interoperability and agent orchestration and ultimately turn AI initiatives into real business outcomes,” he explained.

In August, Uniphore announced it’s planning to expand its agentic AI capabilities through two key acquisitions. It bought a company called Orby AI Inc., which provides tools for creating AI agents that can interact with and control third-party applications, as well as Autonom8 Inc., which had developed a low-code editor for designing agentic AI workflows and putting agents to use.

The company, which only launched the Business AI Cloud in June, said it has seen rapid adoption of its new platform. Some of its highest profile customers include Dell Technologies Inc., The Washington Post, Atlassian Group Corp., Priceline.com LLC and Skechers U.S.A. Inc., which are using its tools to automate business processes and create more personalized customer experiences.

Uniphore co-founder and Chief Executive Umesh Sachdev indicated that the backing from top-level investors and some of the world’s biggest tech firms validates his company’s transition to focus on agentic AI. “We are seeing exponential adoption from Fortune 500 and other large companies, and this investment allows us to deliver even greater impact and accelerate innovation on behalf of our customers worldwide,” he said.

International Data Corp. analyst Gerry Murray said the round stands out because the main backers also happen to be major rivals, and that’s extremely rare. “It’s an unprecedented validation of Uniphore’s position at the center of enterprise AI infrastructure,” he said. “When direct competitors invest in the same company, it signals a broad consensus around a critical enabling layer. In this case, it’s Uniphore’s infrastructure that can securely connect data, knowledge, models and agents across ecosystems.”

Holger Mueller of Constellation Research Inc. concurred, but said the company still faces a lot of competition in its battle for attention against rival AI frameworks and platforms. “It’s a battle that requires a lot of money,” he said. “But Uniphore is now in a good place, with prominent backers from the chip ranks and the biggest analytics players, increasing its valuation to $2.5 billion. Much will depend on how it decides to invest this money, and most likely we’ll see it go toward product enhancements and go-to-market strategy.”

Uniphore indicated that most of the cash will go toward expanding the Business AI Cloud’s capabilities. It will also look to grow its nascent partner ecosystem for AI and data. Its lack of hesitation in identifying acquisition targets suggests more deals could be on the table, too.

March Capital co-founder and Managing Partner Sumant Mandal said Uniphore’s Business AI Cloud provides one of the fastest on-ramps for AI that he has seen, helping organizations get new projects up and running in a matter of weeks. “Adoption of the Business AI Cloud is accelerating with expanding use cases,” he said. “Its open and composable design lets customers start fast and scale safely.”

Image: Uniphore