Founded in 2011, MindMeld helps businesses to build conversational interfaces with cloud-based services. MindMeld had previously raised $15.4 million in venture capital financing from IDG Ventures, GV, Greylock Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners and Intel Capital, among others. "With MindMeld, we will enhance our Collaboration suite, adding new conversational interfaces to our collaboration products starting with Cisco Spark," Cisco's head of corporate development, Rob Salvagno, said in a blog post. Cisco says that the MindMeld team will form the company's Cognitive Collaboration team, a move that immediately evokes the aesthetic of IBM Watson's cognitive computing group.

Cisco today announced plans to acquire AI startup MindMeld for $125 million. Cisco decided to acquire MindMeld, a company that's been called "Siri on steroids," because many bot experiences today are disappointing, IoT and applications VP Rowan Trollope wrote in a blog post today. "Bringing the MindMeld team to Cisco is a giant leap forward in helping our customers experience the next generation of interactive, conversational interfaces." Cisco collaboration software competition includes other enterprise chat players including Microsoft Teams, Google Hangouts Chat, and Slack.