Truecaller, a call-screening app, has announced to have acquired Chillr, the mobile payment provider.
With this, the popular Swedish firm Truecaller which forayed into the digital payments segment in India last March, aims to consolidate its positioning as a serious digital payment player in India, competing with the likes of Whatsapp, Paytm, Tez and others in the world’s second-largest smartphone market.
“Since launching Truecaller Pay in 2017, we’ve seen an increasing number of use cases to make the lives of our users in India easier. By acquiring Chillr, we are reaffirming our commitment to mobile payments and strengthening our plans to increase its adoption amongst our user base,” said Nami Zarringhalam, Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Truecaller, in an official communiqué. “We will, together, have a far bigger impact in this space through the foundation of the team’s expertise and a strong user base that trusts our platform.”
The company, popular for its integrated caller ID service, also announced the launch of Truecaller Pay 2.0, and said the size of its team in India has more than doubled with the acquisition (of Chillr).
Chillr, India’s first multi-bank payments app, was founded by Sony Joy, Anoop Sankar, Mohamed Galib and Lishoy Bhaskaran. In near future, the digital payment app aims to leverage its full reach of over 150 million users in India as well as – it’s over 300 existing partnerships to enable Truecaller Pay as a platform.
Going forward, as part of the acquisition, the founders of Chillr – Sony Joy, Anoop Sankar, Mohamed Galib and Lishoy Bhaskaran will join Truecaller, along with the rest of the team. Joy will be appointed Vice President of Truecaller Pay.
