Trulioo Raises $15 Million, Largest Fintech Round of 2015

Today, we are thrilled to announce that we have raised $15 million in financing from American Express Ventures and existing investors BDC Capital, Blumberg Capital and Tenfore Holdings – marking the first investment by Amex in a Canadian startup, and the largest financial technology financing of 2015 in Canada.

Trulioo was founded by serial entrepreneur Stephen Ufford to improve trust and safety online, and has been focused on compliance and fraud risk mitigation in the fast growing cross border payment industry.

“We currently power customer and merchant onboarding for top global payment and ecommerce players in the market, and we are now looking to take our flagship product, GlobalGateway, to the banking industry,” said Ufford, CEO at Trulioo.  “This investment is a vote of confidence that we can help support the banking industry in meeting the increasingly complex requirements of cross border compliance.”

GlobalGateway connects Trulioo clients to more than one hundred data sources in over 40 countries to provide instant ID verification for over 4 billion consumers, with a special focus on emerging markets where many people have little to no access to the traditional banking system.  By comparing registration information against information collected and hosted by trusted and secure data sources, GlobalGateway provides real-time identity verification around the world through a single integration.

Examples of reliable data sources used for Trulioo’s identity verification include traditional providers such as credit bureaus, utility companies, government agencies and mobile carriers.

“We have been impressed with Trulioo’s breadth of global consumer data,” said Rohit Bodas, Partner at American Express Ventures.  “Conducting identity verification checks to onboard new customers and merchants in multiple countries is a complex problem and an important issue for the financial industry. Trulioo provides an elegant and efficient solution to approach the Know Your Customer process.”

The funding will help the company scale its fast growing business, including expansion of its sales team, technical infrastructure, and customer support as well as data acquisition. With this financing, Trulioo has now raised a total of $26.6 million since 2012.

“We see a huge opportunity for Trulioo as regulators around the world ramp up enforcement activities,” said Andrew Lugsdin, partner at BDC Capital. “The company has built something unique, and is a great market fit for today’s environment.”  Along with the investment from BDC, Lugsdin will join Trulioo’s Board of Directors.