Truecaller raises $18.8 million from Sequoia, others

Stockholm-based Truecaller on Friday said it has raised USD 18.8 million from a group of investors, led by Sequoia Capital, in the second round of financing.

Others in the group included existing investor Open Ocean, Truecaller Chairman Stefan Lennhammer, and a private investor who is known for his high profile Silicon Valley investments, Truecaller said in a statement.

The company had received funding of USD 1.3 million in September 2012 by Open Ocean, an investor in European software start-ups with large user bases or communities.

Truecaller, which has over 45 million users, including in India, helps phone users identify callers and block spam calls.

"Truecaller is among the most engaging applications in many high growth smartphone markets, as it helps make users more efficient in avoiding spam calls and know who is calling them. We are excited to help support the company?s growing user community," Sequoia Capital's Shailesh Lakhani, who has joined the board at Truecaller, said.

The company is also integrating Yelp API data as part of its new product launch on Android and iOS, which allows users to identify reviewed businesses globally. It also incorporates social features to make it easier for users to update contacts and get in touch with people they may know.

With Yelp integration, Truecaller users can now identify local, national, and international businesses, and also view their Yelp rating.

"This integration takes Truecaller?s own search engine to find people and identify numbers, and combines it with Yelp?s crowdsourced business ratings to create one place for genuine and accurate information for the world to use," the statement said.

The ability for users to take advantage of Yelp?s local listings follows on a major partnership that Truecaller forged with Twitter to allow users to tweet and follow other users directly through the Truecaller app.

"2013 was an amazing year for Truecaller and our latest partnership with Yelp expands the value of our service to millions of new users," Truecaller co-founder and CEO Alan Mamedi said.