TruRating Raises $17 Million to Change How Customers Review Businesses

Toronto’s TruRating has raised $16.6 million CAD in Series A funding, taking its total venture capital raised to more than $26 million.

This round of funding was led by Sandaire, an international investment office for families and foundations, and a private family investment group.

A new mass-market ratings system, TruRating says it offers an alternative model to TripAdvisor and Yelp by giving retailers and restaurants the peace of mind that the feedback they receive is from a real, paying customer.

Everyone who uses the payment terminal to pay is asked to rate one of five questions related to service, value, product, experience, and likelihood to recommend the brand, on a scale of 0-9. Merchants are given the feedback in real time so they can assess service levels and make adjustments and improvements. 9 out of 10 people asked to rate when they pay do so, providing merchants with a mass-market view of service and value performance across the company.

This year TruRating hit its first landmark with one million ratings; it has since doubled that. Already live in the UK and Australia, TruRating is enabled on the merchant’s existing payment terminal via their partnerships with the world’s largest payment businesses.

Georgina Nelson, Founder and CEO, explains TruRating’s aspirations for growth in the Canadian market:

“We have already had a fantastic response to TruRating and are working across the payments sector to enable businesses of all sizes and types to access ground breaking insights,” says founder Georgina Nelson. “We’ve established an amazing team in Toronto and our partners are enjoying working with us to provide a value added service that gets to the heart of helping businesses improve.”

Previous funding came from angel investment of $2.1 million in 2014 and seed funding of $3.9 million in 2015.

TruRating was recently named a Gartner 2016 Cool Vendor and has won numerous awards for innovation, including The Cards and Payment Awards 2016, Future 50, and Ingenico Group Best Application 2015.