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India , the world ’s most populous country and the secondly - largest internet securities industry after China , is becoming progressively digitally fighting . However , this rapid digitization comes with a growing endangerment of on-line fraud .
Cyber fraud is mounting in India to the peak where the Amerindic government estimate it couldamount to 0.7 % of the commonwealth ’s GDP — over $ 14 billion — within the next twelvemonth . Even the government - back systems , let in Aadhaar , have been targetedby unfit actors in some cases .
New Delhi keep introducingnew regulatory requirementsto limit fraudulent digital transactions . Nonetheless , these updates often place a burden on businesses to on a regular basis update their tech . Efforts to carry off digital pseudo sometimes also result in gap . For example , the recent clampdown on unauthorised utilisation of the permanent account numberdisrupted transactionsfor some fintech platforms .
Equal , a Hyderabad - based inauguration , aims to address all this with its suite of identity verification and fiscal data point - partake ware .
The two - twelvemonth - old inauguration serve stage business streamline know - your - customer ( KYC ) requirements , fraud prevention , and regulatory compliance by integrating more than 50 identity database and thousands of API supplier . The startup also recently acquired an unrevealed stake in bill collector OneMoney to commingle its identity operator verification services with the latter ’s consent - based financial datum sharing .
“ Data share-out is still a major trouble in this country if it ’s not done digitally with consent , ” Keshav Reddy , the son of GVK Group ’s frailty chairperson GV Sanjay Reddy , order TechCrunch .
Reddy institute Equal with former Swiggy technology director Rajeev Ranjan after motivate back to India from the U.S.
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For over the last two years , Reddy bootstrapped Equal , and the startup has added more than 350 customers , including State Bank of India , HDFC Bank , ICICI Bank , Reliance Jio , Airtel , Uber , and Zoom .
The startup has now raised a Series A round of $ 10 million at a post - money valuation of $ 80 million to surmount its operations , expand the production cortege , and forge strategical partnership . The turn was lead by Prosus Ventures , along with Tomales Bay Capital and Reddy himself , and saw participation from other investor , including Blume Ventures , DST Global Partners , Gruhas VC , and Quona VC .
Equal is not alone in the space , as the marketplace already has players such as Perfios ( backed by Warburg Pincus and Teachers ’ Venture Growth ) , IDfy ( indorse by TransUnion ) , and Bureau ( backed by GMO VenturePartners ) . However , Reddy told TechCrunch that unlike the competition , Equal toy the role of an aggregator and partners even with some of its competitors .
Ravi Kumar , co - founding father and CEO of Upstox , who has also invested in Equal ’s initiative round and is one of the early customers for its individuality verification and account aggregator , tell TechCrunch that it ’s the cost and uptime that gives the trading political platform a reason not to look for establish a similar tech in - star sign .
Upstox has been using Equal for about a twelvemonth and is process around 350,000 transactions a calendar month . Before that , Kumar said , the platform was trust on live ID - verification providers .
“ Equal has been able to aggregate across a deal of different APIs and ensures very high uptime between all those different connections , ” he said .
