Equal is not alone in the space, as the market already has players such as Perfios (backed by Warburg Pincus and Teachers’ Venture Growth), IDfy (backed by TransUnion), and Bureau (backed by GMO VenturePartners). However, Reddy told TechCrunch that unlike the competition, Equal plays the role of an aggregator and partners even with some of 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, told TechCrunch that it’s the cost and uptime that gives the trading platform a reason not to look for building a similar tech in-house.