Member Article

Tripadvisor rival TruRating closes £9.5m funding round

London-based consumer ratings platform TruRating has closed its £9.5m Series A funding round as it looks to take the fight to ratings giants Tripadvisor and Yelp.

The funding, which brings the firm’s total funding to £13.7m, was led by international investment firm Sandaire who specialise in investments for families and foundations, as well as another unnamed private family investment group.

Founded in 2014 by Georgina Nelson, TruRating differentiates itself from its rivals by ensuring that ratings are from genuine paying customers by allowing consumers to rate their experience when using a special payment terminal.

Users are asked one question from a rotating bank of five relating to service, value, product, experience and the likelihood of them recommending the business, based on a scale of 0-9, providing reliable insight and removing one of the chief criticisms of current ratings platforms.

The firm has already rolled out its service with retailers in Australia and the UK, and has plans to launch in Canada and the USA later this year.

Having already passed the 2 million ratings mark, Chief Executive Georgina said that TruRating aims to bring ‘honesty and transparency’ back to consumer ratings as its user growth continues to outpace its global rivals.

Commenting on the funding she added: “We have had an incredible year, building a world class service with our partners and customers. Securing this funding will help us take TruRating to the next level.

“There’s a huge appetite among businesses to get validated, real-time ratings from the majority of their customers. Now 88% of people asked to rate do. It’s such an easy way for consumers to have their say and be listened to, and for merchants to respond and improve.”

The business’ partner list currently includes a mix of small, independent merchants such as pizza brand Franco Manca, and larger retailers like Arco.

TruRating claims that a number of pilots are already underway with a number of big name brands with presumably more to follow once its North American expansion takes off.

Touching on future plans, Georgina said: “We will be announcing more payment partnerships in the coming months.

“These will allow us to open up TruRating to even more merchants and as a result some very big household names will be working with us by the end of the year, adding millions more ratings every day.”