Varun Dua Wiki, Age, Wife, Family, Biography & More

Varun dua is an Indian Fintech entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of Acko, a digital insurance company. He also co-founded and was the CEO of one of India’s top online insurance aggregators, Coverfox. In 2024, he appeared as a judge on season 3 of the business reality television series Shark Tank India.

Wiki/Biography

Varun Dua was born on Wednesday, 25 February 1981 (age 42 years; as of 2024) in Delhi. His zodiac sign is Pisces. At the age of two, Varun moved to Mumbai, Maharashtra, with his family. He pursued a commerce degree at the R.A.Podar College Of Commerce & Economics, Mumbai, Maharashtra. After graduating, he appeared for the CAT exam. Later, he pursued a master’s degree in Strategic Marketing and Communications at Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad, Gujarat.

Physical Appearance

Height (approx.): 5′ 8″

Hair Colour: Black

Eye Colour: Black

Family

Parents & Siblings

Varun Dua’s father, Chander Mohan Dua, was a government employee, and his mother, Rashmi Dua, was a school principal. He has a younger brother named Kartik Dua.

Wife & Children

Varun Dua got married to Sapna Rana in 2012. Sapna Rana is the head of music acquisition at Radio Mirchi.

Religion

Varun Dua follows Hinduism.

Career

In 2002, after completing his formal education, Varun Dua started working as an intern at Leo Burnett Advertising in Mumbai. According to him, he worked there for less than a year. During his time at Leo Burnett, he worked on a project related to insurance and to get help with that he reached out to an employee at Tata AIG, who later offered him a job. In 2003, he started working at Tata AIG Life Insurance as a Marketing Manager. He worked there for 4 years from 2003 to 2007. In January 2007, he started working as a Marketing Manager at Franklin Templeton Investments, he worked there for a year before quitting the job. After Franklin Templeton Investments, he decided to take a break from his career. During this time, he met Devendra Rane, an IT engineer from IIT Bombay, and along with him, he came up with the idea to merge the insurance sector with IT. In 2010, he co-founded GlitterBug Technologies with Rane. In an interview, Varun Rane talked about coming up with the idea for his company and said that it was a sector he was familiar with and that had helped him build his company. 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. And that we could do a much sharper job of it. And that proved right to a large degree.” ^[1]Forbes India

In 2014, Varun Dua decided to turn his company into an online insurance broking firm Coverfox. He acted as the CEO of the Coverfox. According to Varun Dua, he had solved the traffic problem and the buying problem in the Insurance sector with Coverfox but had yet to solve the pricing problem. By 2016, Varun was working towards a new idea of solving the pricing problem so he started working with new insurance companies and came up with an idea to manufacture the product himself since Coverfox was an online broker portal and brokers cannot also be insurers, he decided to start a new company named Acko. with the help of some of the investors from Coverfox, Varun secured an investment of 30 million dollars even before Acko began its operations, in May 2017.

 

In October 2017, Dua got the licenses for Acko and launched its first product in February 2018. Acko began its operations with automobile insurance but eventually began mobile insurance and with a partnership with OLA started health insurance for OLA passengers. In October 2021, Acko became the 34th Indian start-up to become a unicorn company after it raised 255 million dollars in Series D round which increased the company’s overall value to 1.1 billion dollars. ^[2]Live Mint

Facts/Trivia

• According to Varun, he wanted to be a newsreader and was inspired by Prannoy Roy.

• In January 2024, Varun Dua, through an Instagram post, announced that he would appear as a Judge on season 3 of the business reality television series Shark Tank India.
  

  Varun Dua’s Instagram post about joining Shark Tank India season 3 as a judge

• Varun Dua is a dog lover, and he often shares photos of his pet dog on social media.
  

  Varun Dua with a dog