Equal introduces a comprehensive strategy aimed at addressing the increasing issue of cyber fraud in India, focusing on preventive measures and digital security enhancements
India, the world’s most populous nation and the second-largest internet market after China, is becoming more digitally active. Nevertheless, the risk of online fraud is on the rise as a result of this accelerated digitization.
The Indian government has indicated that cyber fraud is on the rise in the country, with the potential to exceed $14 billion or 0.7% of the country’s GDP within the next year. In certain instances, malicious actors have targeted government-backed systems, such as Aadhaar.
New regulatory requirements are consistently implemented by New Delhi in order to mitigate fraudulent digital transactions. However, these modifications frequently necessitate that businesses update their technology on a regular basis.
In some cases, disruptions are also the consequence of efforts to eradicate digital fraud. For example, transactions for certain fintech platforms were disrupted by the recent crackdown on unauthorized use of the permanent account number.
Equal, a Hyderabad-based startup, is committed to resolve all of these issues through its suite of identity verification and financial data-sharing products.
By integrating over 50 identity databases and thousands of API providers, the two-year-old startup assists businesses in streamlining regulatory compliance, fraud prevention, and know-your-customer (KYC) requirements.
Additionally, the startup recently acquired an undisclosed stake in account aggregator OneMoney in order to integrate its identity verification services with the latter’s consent-based financial data sharing.
“Data sharing remains a significant issue in this country if it is not conducted digitally with consent,” stated Keshav Reddy, the son of GVK Group’s vice chairman, GV Sanjay Reddy, in an interview with TechCrunch.
After returning to India from the United States, Reddy collaborated with Rajeev Ranjan, the former engineering director of Swiggy, to establish Equal.
Equal has been bootstrapped by Reddy for the past two years, and the startup has acquired over 350 consumers, including State Bank of India, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Reliance Jio, Airtel, Uber, and Zoom.
In order to expand its product portfolio, forge strategic partnerships, and scale its operations, the startup has raised a Series A round of $10 million at a post-money valuation of $80 million. Prosus Ventures, Tomales Bay Capital, and Reddy himself led the round, which also included Blume Ventures, DST Global, Gruhas VC, and Quona VC.
Equal is not the sole entity operating in this sector; the market is already populated by competitors such as Perfios (supported by Warburg Pincus and Teachers’ Venture Growth), IDfy (supported by TransUnion), and Bureau (supported by GMO VenturePartners).
Nevertheless, Reddy informed TechCrunch that Equal operates as an aggregator and collaborates with some of its competitors, in contrast to its competitors.
Ravi Kumar, co-founder and CEO of Upstox, who has also invested in Equal’s maiden round and is one of the early customers for its identity verification and account aggregator, stated to TechCrunch that the trading platform is not interested in building a similar technology in-house due to the cost and uptime.
Upstox has been employing Equal for approximately one year and is currently processing approximately 350,000 transactions per month. Kumar stated that the platform was previously dependent on existing ID-verification providers.
He stated that Equal has been able to aggregate data from a variety of APIs and guarantee a high level of availability across all of these connections.