Startup Story Team
Insurance is one of the few financial products that people buy with more anxiety than excitement. Policy documents are dense, the jargon is relentless, and sales calls can feel predatory. Ditto Insurance, a Bengaluru-based advisory platform, has decided to fix that. Backed by Zerodha and built by the storytellers behind the popular newsletter Finshots, Ditto’s rise is a master-class in how clear communication can become a competitive moat.
From Three-Minute Newsletters to a New Venture:
Ditto’s story begins in 2019 at IIM Ahmedabad, where batchmates Shrehith Karkera, Bhanu Harish Gurram, and Pawan Kumar Rai chose entrepreneurship over campus placements and launched Finshots-a newsletter that condensed complicated financial topics into engaging three-minute reads. Their crisp explainer on Jet Airways caught the eye of Zerodha founder Nithin Kamath, whose venture fund Rainmatter invested ₹4 crore in the fledgling media brand.
Why Insurance?
With a growing community that trusted Finshots to decode markets, the founders looked for the “most complicated” retail product they could simplify next. Insurance topped the list. Unlike marketplaces that showcase dozens of policies, the team envisioned a human-led advisory service where trained experts would guide each buyer from first question to final claim, free of hard-sell tactics.
Birth of Ditto Insurance:
The founders secured an IRDAI corporate agent licence in December 2020 and formally launched Ditto in January 2021. Six months later, Bhanu’s brother Lokesh Gurram joined as the fourth co-founder, rounding out the leadership team.
An Advice-First Model:
Ditto now employs more than 500 advisors, analysts, and technologists in Bengaluru and operates with a simple promise: no cold calls, no spam-just honest advice. Seventy percent of its customers arrive via the Finshots community, underscoring the power of trust built through content.
Key touchpoints include:
- One-on-one consultations (free) that filter the market down to 2–3 suitable policies.
- Form-filling assistance to avoid nondisclosure pitfalls that can derail claims.
- Lifetime claims support-crucial in a country where payout processes can intimidate first-time buyers.
Revenue comes only when a customer chooses to purchase through Ditto, aligning the platform’s incentives with the buyer’s interests rather than a quota.
Strategic Partnerships & Public Goodwill:
- Max Life Collaboration (Jan 2021): Ditto partnered with Max Life to distribute protection plans through a fully digital experience, expanding product depth while reinforcing its “advisor-first” positioning.
- Hiring UPSC Aspirants (Apr 2024): In a move that grabbed national headlines, Ditto invited civil-services candidates who narrowly missed the final list to join its advisory team-leveraging their research skills while offering them meaningful careers.
Scaling with Purpose:
From a ten-member pilot squad in early 2021 to a 500-plus workforce today, Ditto has grown without abandoning its core principle of education before sales. Recognition followed: LinkedIn ranked it among India’s top startups of 2023, and industry observers routinely cite Ditto as proof that trust can be monetised responsibly in fintech.
