The Article Tells The Story of:
- India’s cyber fraud risk is surging, potentially reaching $14 billion in losses by next year.
- Hyderabad startup Equal offers tools for identity verification and fraud prevention, addressing this issue.
- Equal recently raised $10 million to expand its services and already serves major clients like SBI and Reliance Jio.
- By aggregating data from various sources, Equal differentiates itself from competitors with high uptime and cost-effectiveness.
India’s Cyber Fraud Problem
According to researchers, with the expansion of India’s digital footprint comes the increase in danger from cyber fraud. Currently, India houses over a billion residents, and its internet users number to be the world’s second-largest demographic. The Indian government estimates that digital scams in the country could amount to as much as 0.7% of the GDP by next year, or more than $14 billion. Such a serious number calls for innovative and scalable solutions that will not only guard these individuals but also businesses and government systems.
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To overcome this challenge, New Delhi has enacted several regulations aimed at curtailing online transactions. Unfortunately, sometimes, these regulations form an additional operational expense for an enterprise in a bid to keep up with the pace of updates required for keeping in line with compliance changes. Indeed, the steps that have been undertaken toward controlling cybercrime sometimes cause unanticipated breaks; for instance, there have been disruptions in the fintech services recently affected by restrictions placed on illegal use of PAN.
Equal: Hyderabad’s Cyber Security Solution
Enter Equal, the Hyderabad-based startup that is developing an identity verification and financial data-sharing platform for a cyber fraud epidemic in India. Co-founder Keshav Reddy is the vice-chairman of GVK Group’s son, and the other co-founder, Rajeev Ranjan, is an ex-executive director engineering at Swiggy. The effort has made some splendid progress in the fields of cybersecurity and data integrity over the past two years.
In equal platform, businesses are well connected to over 50 identity databases and thousands of APIs, which help businesses easily streamline the process of know your customer, prevent fraud, and satisfy multiple regulatory compliance expectations. Therefore, equal platform aggregates identity verification data to stop fraud from beginning, particularly within the very sensitive sectors such as finance and telecommunication.
Equal has recently acquired a stake in the account aggregator, OneMoney. It would do this to help be incorporated into one of its identity verification services. Then, it would further guarantee the security and authenticity of the information that flows across various platforms using consent-based financial data sharing.
Build a robust client base
Already, more than 350 big clients are being attracted to Equal’s services: major Indian banks like State Bank of India, HDFC Bank, and ICICI Bank and industrial giants like Reliance Jio, Airtel, Uber, and Zoom. One of its clients, an exchange processing nearly 350,000 transactions every month, Upstox has relied on Equal to streamline its identity verification needs. According to co-founder and CEO of Upstox, Ravi Kumar, Equal’s aggregated API network and high uptime make it an economically viable substitute for building in-house systems.
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Scalability is paramount to doing business, making the reliability afforded by Equal scalable and thus easily allowing the smooth running of business without the burden of the backend of compliance that digital security might bring about.
Funding and Future Plans
Recently, the startup Equal raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Prosus Ventures, during which Tomales Bay Capital, Blume Ventures, DST Global, Gruhas VC, Quona VC, and even Reddy himself contributed. The valuation is now at $80 million, thanks to Equal, which is ready to push product offerings forward, scale its workforce, and get into strategic partnerships to further cement security in India more.
Competitive Landscape and Unique Edge
So while it is possible to argue that the Indian cybersecurity market already has established players like Perfios and IDfy,” said Bhavik Vadhani, co-founder and business development head at Equal. “But we differentiated ourselves by being an aggregator, even partnering with competitors to create a broader security ecosystem. This allows us to stay versatile and scalable, so we can cater to businesses of any size.”.
Of course, flexibility and high uptime across multiple connections go very far in differentiating it in a competitive market. According to Reddy, “The aim of Equal is not only preventing fraud but reducing the hassle and cost of keeping safe systems”. A one-stop solution, seamlessly combining multiple APIs, Equal has brought about a holistic kit for businesses in the fight against the cyber fraud which India’s rapid digital transformation has thrown at them.
The Road Ahead
Equal’s plan to fight India’s growing cyber fraud menace reflects the group’s commitment to privacy, security, and innovation. With a full strength of clients, robust financial support, and a collaborative model, Equal is well-equipped to help India’s businesses navigate the evolving contours of digital threats. The company has integrated identity verification, data sharing, and regulatory compliance under one roof to spearhead a new benchmark on cybersecurity across India’s digital economy.
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