Hyderabad: Serial entrepreneur Aditya Vuchi, who recently exited his previous company MediaMint in a Rs. 566 Cr. deal, announced that he has raised seed funding for his latest venture. His newest startup, Doosra, is focused on solving one of the most complex and pressing problems globally – privacy.
The round was led by Omidyar Network India. Titan Capital, 2am Ventures and other angel investors including Bhuvan Gupta, co-founder, OfBusiness, Nitin Agarwal and Srinivas Raju Kalidindi also participated in the round.
Doosra provides a tech platform for consumers and businesses to manage their digital lives in a more streamlined way. It provides a SIM-free virtual mobile number that users can use in situations where they are compelled to share their personal mobile number. All incoming calls to the Doosra number are either automatically blocked or sent to voicemail. Users can sign up on www.doosra.com, select a plan and get a phone number of their choice for instant activation. All blocked calls, SMSes, OTPs, and voicemail can be reviewed, and settings managed through the accompanying Doosra mobile app available on Android and iOS.
Protecting our privacy with a ‘Doosra’ number
Speaking about the product, Aditya Vuchi, Founder & CEO of Doosra said “With so much digital adoption in communication, identity, and payments, privacy will play a central role. Doosra ensures the safeguarding of a user’s personal data by providing a publicly shareable mobile number at malls, supermarkets, price comparison sites, online classifieds, and e-commerce platforms”
Piyush Soonee, Principal, Omidyar Network India, added, “The impact that inclusive PrivacyTech can create in the lives of every Indian is immense. With regulation putting pressure on businesses, and consumers across the economic spectrum looking for tools to take charge of their digital lives, Doosra will solve a critical issue that impacts almost all of us. Aditya shares our passion for empowering individual privacy and has a sharp focus on translating a mission to a business model.”
Launched in Sep 2020, Doosra was bootstrapped by Aditya until this seed round. Speaking about this seed round, Aditya said “While we tackle such an important topic of privacy, I felt it is important to bring in the right investors to help evangelise the product, help with strategic partnerships and help elevate the cause of privacy. Each of these investors bring in a unique perspective to Doosra and I’m glad to have them join the journey. We plan to use this capital to accelerate our customer outreach and product innovation efforts.”
With 100k+ downloads, Doosra has blocked over 700k calls and 2.5M messages from over 50,000 telemarketers in the last 12 months. It helps women safely communicate with vendors, delivery personnel, and other strangers without the need to share their personal numbers.
During the second wave of the Covid pandemic, Doosra offered a free 6-month plan to volunteers that needed to post their number on social media platforms to coordinate medical support, beds availability, etc. Doosra is also seeing good traction in the B2B segment as well where merchants are using a Doosra number to separate their personal and business communication.
