Varun Dua Success Story- Founder of Acko and the New Shark of Shark Tank India

India’s FinTech sector has been growing at a remarkable pace, raising nearly $8 billion in investments at different stages of development. India has the highest FinTech adoption globally, and in 2024, there will be over ten thousand two hundred registered fintech startups in the country, thus making it one of the fastest-growing FinTech markets in the world. Considering the future, the Indian FinTech industry is expected to reach up to $150 billion in the year 2025.

More than ninety percent of the investment flows into the sector in 2015 were made in payments and alternative finance sub-sectors. Since then, the investment landscape has changed; now there is more baloney across the subsectors, including InsurTech, WealthTech, and others, all of which have received good investor attention. Of course, 17 Indian FinTech firms have now become unicorns.

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Insurance companies, particularly in India, will stand to gain hugely from technology in terms of optimizing distribution costs and leveraging algorithms for price personalization. This is espoused strongly by Varun Dua, whose efforts are credited with changing the insurance landscape in India: “If you really want to change the plumbing, you will have to start manufacturing it.”

VA serial fintech entrepreneur Varun Dua co-founded Coverfox, one of India’s largest online insurance aggregators, and served as CEO. In 2016, he founded the Serial Fintech startup Acko, which raised $30 million in pre-launch funding, considering his previous track record and vision for innovation.

Above all, Varun Dua is a serial fintech entrepreneur. He is a co-founder of Coverfox, which is one of the biggest online insurance aggregators in India, where he worked as a CEO. Acko is a serial fintech startup, which got Varun kicking off in 2016 and managed to raise $30 million as pre-launch funding in line with his past record and vision for innovation.

Varun Dua Success: Important Facts

Varun Dua: Childhood & Education

Varun Dua, the founder and chief executive officer of Acko, has an industry experience of more than 10 years in insurance of different services and responsibilities. He was earlier CEO and co-founder at Coverfox Insurance Broking Pvt. Ltd., where he helped develop direct customer acquisition schemes through marketing analytics by using technology in the delivery of customer services.

With a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Mumbai, Varun also holds a Master’s degree obtained from MICA, one of the top business schools in India. This combination really has given him a lot of strength in product management and business development, and it has defined his entire journey thus far.

Family Members of Varun Dua

Career Story of Varun Dua Success

Coverfox is an online insurance aggregation platform founded by Varun Dua. Unlike most entrepreneurs today, who bank on creating speed by causing disruption, he took the long, difficult route. A few months after graduating, Varun became a trainee at Leo Burnett Advertising and subsequently became a marketing manager at Tata AIG Life Insurance. He went on to join Franklin Templeton Investments and, in 2013, started Coverfox after trying his hand at two previous enterprises called Glitterbug Technologies and Enser Communications.

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Acko was born out of Varun’s understanding that insurance as a product and the way it was being sold were going to be revolutionized by the Internet. Initially thrown into the insurance industry, he quickly became fascinated with the myriad twists and turns related to it, which led him to aspire to start a business in that domain. In retrospect, he said, “I really started off not very clear about what I was doing but certainly didn’t want to do what I’ve been doing.”

Acko is exclusively a D2C player and makes everything but underwriting and risk selection work in a normal insurance way. The firm offers the same products—car, bike, and health insurance—but goes further by introducing novel, bite-sized insurance products that cover riders, ticket cancellation, mobile protection, etc. Over 15 important digital organizations, including Ola, RedBus, OYO, Zomato, Urban Company, and HDB Financial Services, are part of the partnerships ecosystem created by the organization.

Story of Acko: Varun Dua’s Co-Founder

Acko’s motto, which goes, “Insurance made easy: Zero commission. Zero paperwork,” is a reflection of its whole philosophy regarding simplifying the insurance process. The company even had its campaign with the same motto called “Full Paisa Wasool,” which it constantly adapted for advertising purposes to denote that insurance through Acko provides total value for money.

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It is important to note that Acko’s digital-only model eliminates the cost of having physical storefronts, along with a traditional distribution network common in the industry. As Acko founder Varun Dua puts it, almost all insurers pay salespersons to sell nearly the same product. Acko, instead, works on developing customized solutions that can organically generate demand for them and thereby do not need any aggressive sales pitch or high-cost distribution channels.

Mumbai-based Acko has multiple customer-focused insurance programs that give it five ratings and has achieved trust value/acceptance of over 4.5 crore satisfied customers. The operating revenue in FY22 was INR 1,334 crore, going up to INR 1,758 crore in FY23 and INR 2,106 crore in FY24. Despite the gains, the company was in losses during these years, recording a loss of INR 482 crore in FY22, which was increased to INR 738.5 crore in FY23 before coming down to INR 670 crore in FY24.

A customer-focused strategy combined with outstanding service makes Acko unique and builds excellent consumer confidence, with findings from investors such as Narayan Murthy and Accel. Acko reported a premium of INR 41.56 crore in September 2019, a six-fold increase over the previous year. The transformation into digital insurance, particularly during the pandemic, has catalyzed the phenomenal 120% growth of Acko’s automotive insurance during Q1 of FY22.

Acko has already begun moving quickly in India, selling cheap, commission-free insurance solutions that are totally online. Currently a unicorn, it does not seem to stop there.

Investments of Varun Dua

So far, as per the data found on the internet, a total of five investments have been made by Varun Dua, and the latest investment was made in Infinite. club on August 12, 2024. Here, we are listing the other four investments with all the details.

Challenges Faced By Varun Dua

Varun Dua holds that having trust as a key challenge in his journey through the insurance sector was indeed a major obstacle at first. The different ways that insurance products are bought and the complexity of the claims process add to this gulf in trust.

For a large number of prospective insurants, the insurance claim experience has been a long, agonizing, and monotonous process. Dua wants to improve the customer’s experience across the whole value chain by making claims transparent, efficient, and usability-oriented.

Shark Tank India: Varun Dua

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The first season of Shark Tank India changed the game for many aspiring entrepreneurs across the length and breadth of the country. It became a blockbuster for the audience and opened the doors for entrepreneurs in exposure and considerable investments. For most people, aside from the business deals, it was also the amusing arguments from the Sharks that became a happy addition to the excitement of the show. By the time of Season 3, Varun Dua was one of the Sharks, adding his perspective to the show.

Varun went on to post on his X account about his experience and said:

“Being a ‘shark’ today is unreal for me. I was not born with a silver spoon. I was admittedly not a type A student with my average grades. Nothing in my background or resume suggested that I would be some sort of entrepreneur building something tangible at scale. But here I am. There was nothing particularly smooth about my journey building @ACKOIndia, which only makes being in front of the camera for Shark Tank that much more special: We’re at the threshold of some gigantic changes in India, and there’s such amazing scope for young entrepreneurs. Bringing it to life for me is exciting, diving into this ocean of opportunity with such talented people.”

Conclusion

To sum it up, Varun Dua’s journey, right from a humble starting point to being an accomplished entrepreneur and shark on Shark Tank India, speaks volumes for the amount of opportunities available to an aspiring and innovative mind within India and for such a mind to call the country home. He shows the power of perseverance against challenges and how they become growth opportunities, even when the course isn’t very clear.

At this time when India grapples with an impending technological and entrepreneurial revolution, Dua’s presence at Shark Tank India is a recognition of his commitment to empowering future Indian entrepreneurs and shaping the lively, dynamic future of India’s business ecosystem.