PE firm Sequoia invests in anti-spam calls app firm Truecaller

Truecaller, the free mobile application service provider, has received a $18.8-million investment from a group of investors led by Sequoia Capital.

The other investors in the Series B round of financing are Open Ocean, an existing investor, Truecaller Chairman Stefan Lennhammer and a private investor who is known for his high profile Silicon Valley investments.

Series B, the second round of financing for a business by private equity investors or venture capitalists, would generally take place when a company has accomplished certain milestones in developing its business.

Truecaller is a Stockholm-based company with more than 45 million users. the company, which has more than half of its users in India, provides an mobile application that shows the name of caller on a mobile phone, even if the number is not saved on the phone.

Users across the world use the service to block spam calls on their mobile phones and help identify unknown phone numbers.

The company has also announced integration of Yelp API data as part of its new product launch on Android and iOS, which allows users to identify millions of reviewed businesses globally.

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 crowd-sourced business ratings to create one place for genuine and accurate information for users.

The new Truecaller release incorporates new social features to make it even easier to update contacts and get in touch with 'people you may know.'

''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,'' said Shailesh Lakhani, Sequoia Capital, who has joined the board at Truecaller.

"With Sequoia, we have a partner who truly shares our vision, and together we look forward to continued innovation and global expansion by creating a helpful service that the entire world can use confidently,'' co-founder and CEO, Alan Mamedi.