Varun Dua

Some Lesser Known Facts About Varun Dua

• He is the founder of Acko, an online insurance firm, and serves as its CEO. Previously, he co-created and led Coverfox, one of India’s leading digital insurance comparison platforms. In 2024, he appeared as a judge on the third season of Shark Tank India, a business reality TV show.

• Inspired by Prannoy Roy, Varun Dua wanted to become a news anchor as a kid.

• After his graduation, Varun Dua began an internship at Mumbai’s Leo Burnett Advertising in 2002. He was employed there for less than a year.

• He was working on an insurance project at Leo Burnett when he contacted a Tata AIG employee for assistance. The Tata AIG employee offered him a job at Tata, which he readily accepted.

• Dua started working at Tata AIG Life Insurance as a Marketing Manager in 2003. From 2003 until 2007, he spent four years working there.

• He began working as a marketing manager at Franklin Templeton Investments in January 2007 and remained there for a year before leaving.

• After Franklin Templeton Investments, he decided to put his career on hold. He met Devendra Rane, an IT engineer from IIT Bombay, during that time, and the two of them came up with the idea of integrating IT and insurance.

• In 2010, Dua and Rane co-founded GlitterBug Technologies. He discussed how he came up with the idea for his business in an interview, mentioning his experience with the industry as an important aspect of his success. He said,
  

  We both saw a niche, and thought let’s figure it out together. Insurance companies were struggling, the large software companies servicing the insurance companies don’t really know what’s going on this was our view.” ^[3]Forbes India

• Varun Dua decided to turn his business into an online insurance brokerage portal named Coverfox in 2014. He took on the role of Coverfox’s CEO.

• According To Varun Dua, he had used Coverfox to resolve the buying and traffic issues in the insurance industry, but he still had to work on the pricing issue.

• In 2016, Varun started working with younger insurance companies and decided to launch a new business called Acko after getting the idea of creating the product himself because Coverfox was an internet broker portal and brokers could not be insurers.

• Even before Acko launched in May 2017, Varun was able to get a $30 million investment with the assistance of some investors from Coverfox.

• Dua obtained the Acko licenses in October 2017 and launched its first product in February 2018.

• Acko started first by selling car insurance but later expanded into mobile insurance and, in collaboration with OLA, started offering health insurance to passengers on OLA.

• Acko raised 255 million dollars in a Series D round of funding in October 2021, making it the 34th Indian start-up to reach unicorn status and increasing its total valuation to 1.1 billion dollars. ^[4]Live Mint

• Varun Dua is a dog lover and along with his wife, owns many rescued dogs.

• In 2024, Varun Dua was featured as a judge on season 3 of the business-themed reality television show Shark Tank India. on Sony Liv.