Posted by Hyderabad: Privacy tech startup Doosra has raised seed funding from Omidyar Network India and others.
Serial entrepreneur Aditya Vuchi founded Doosra in 2020 with the aim to solve the crucial problem of people’s privacy concerns around the world.
Omidyar Network India led Doosra’s seed funding round along with Titan Capital, 2am Ventures and others. Angel investors including Bhuvan Gupta, Co-founder – OfBusiness, Nitin Agarwal and Srinivas Raju Kalidindi also participated in the round.
The virtual second phone number app Doosra provides consumers and businesses with a SIM-free virtual mobile number. They can use the virtual phone number in situations where they are forced to provide their personal mobile numbers.
Doosra’s virtual mobile number will automatically block all incoming calls or will send them to voicemail. Users can sign up on its website, select a plan and get a phone number of their choice for instant activation.
The app allows the user to review all blocked calls, SMSes, OTPs and voicemails. And it is available on Android and iOS platforms.
“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,” said Aditya Vuchi, Founder and CEO – Doosra.
“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,” said Piyush Soonee, Principal – Omidyar Network India.
Vuchi launched Doosra in Sep 2020 as a bootstrapped privacy startup until this seed funding round.
“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,” said Vuchi.
“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,” added.
With 100,000 plus downloads, the Doosra app has blocked over 700,000 calls and 2.5 million 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, the privacy tech startup 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.
It 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.