Truecaller acquires Bengaluru-based TrustCheckr to strengthen enterprise offerings

TrustCheckr's seven full-time employees will join Truecaller as part of the acquisition.

Caller identification and spam protection app Truecaller on October 6 said that it has acquired Bengaluru-based fraud detection service TrustCheckr to strengthen its offerings to enterprises.

While Truecaller didn't disclose the deal size, the acquisition is being financed through its cash reserves and is expected to close in Q4 2023.

Founded by Adhip Ramesh, Praveen Raj, and Shivraj Harsha in 2017, TrustCheckr is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that helps businesses verify customer information and detect fraud risk based on phone numbers and digital signals.

The startup, which counts IIFL Fintech Fund among its investors, has raised a total of $1.1 million in funding to date.

Truecaller's acquisition of TrustCheckr is expected to strengthen its enterprise risk intelligence tool, which helps businesses minimize risk and fraud. The tool was launched last week, and the deal will accelerate its rollout, the company said. TrustCheckr's seven full-time employees will join Truecaller as part of the acquisition.

In a statement, Truecaller said that TrustCheckr's offerings have drawn "noticeable interest" from banks, fintech, and other financial institutions.

As part of this deal, TrustCheckr will bring existing customers such as IIFL Finance Limited and Piramal Capital and Housing Finance Limited along with other potential customers to Truecaller for Business, the Bengaluru-based firm said.

“While our main focus has been on CallerID and spam protection, fraud calls and messages are increasing at an unprecedented rate globally by virtue of e.g. mobile banking. Fraudsters operate in a different manner than spammers so investing in elevating our fraud detection capabilities is a natural evolution for us," said Truecaller founder Nami Zarringhalam.

"The combination of the skills that TrustCheckr has in identifying fraudsters through external signals of fraud with Truecaller’s internal signals will be really powerful,” he said.