Burner is a mobile application for iOS and Android made by Ad Hoc Labs, Inc. that allows users to create temporary disposable phone numbers in the U.S. and Canada. The app allows smartphone users to have a phone number that is anonymous and can be thrown away, for purposes such as online ads, while traveling, for business projects, or for dating profiles. Burner is a product of Ad Hoc Labs, an

Atwater Village, Los Angeles Atwater Village is a neighborhood in the 13th district of Los Angeles, California. Much of Atwater Village lies in the fertile Los Angeles River flood plain. Located in the northeast region of the city, Atwater borders Griffith Park and Silver L ...

-based software startup. The application's name is a reference to so-called "burner phones,"

prepaid mobile phone A prepaid mobile device, also known as a, pay-as-you-go (PAYG), pay-as-you-talk, pay and go, go-phone, prepay or burner phone, is a mobile device such as a phone for which credit is purchased in advance of service use. The purchased credit is ...

s that are replaced frequently. Burner phones have been used to control costs, reduce contractual obligations, and provide a degree of privacy in mobile phone use. They have been used in

popular culture Popular culture (also called mass culture or pop culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as, popular art or mass art) and objects that are dominant or prevalent in a ...

by drug dealers on ''

The Wire ''The Wire'' is an American crime drama television series created and primarily written by author and former police reporter David Simon. The series was broadcast by the cable network HBO in the United States. ''The Wire'' premiered on June 2 ...

'' and ''

Breaking Bad ''Breaking Bad'' is an American crime drama television series created and produced by Vince Gilligan. Set and filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the series follows Walter White (Bryan Cranston), an underpaid, overqualified, and dispirited h ...

'', spies on ''

Burn Notice ''Burn Notice'' is an American espionage television series created by Matt Nix, which originally aired on the USA Network for a total of seven seasons from June 28, 2007, to September 12, 2013. The show stars Jeffrey Donovan, Gabrielle Anwar ...

'', and agents in '' Mission: Impossible''. The company has stated it would comply with law enforcement requests but would require valid search warrants.

History

The Burner application launched in August 2012 with angel investors including Techstars founder David Cohen and super angel

Dave McClure David "Dave" McClure is an entrepreneur and angel investor based in the San Francisco Bay Area, who founded the business accelerator 500 Startups (now 500 Global), serving as CEO until his resignation in 2017. He founded Practical Venture Capita ...

in October 2012. Its iPhone application was released in August 2012, followed by an Android version in April 2013. In October 2013, Ad Hoc Labs raised an institutional funding round led by Founder Collective and

Venrock Venrock (portmanteau of Venture and Rockefeller) is a venture capital firm formed in 1969 to build upon the successful investing activities of the Rockefeller family that began in the late 1930s. It has offices in Palo Alto, California, New York ...

, with participation from

500 Startups 500 Global (previously 500 Startups) is an early-stage venture fund and seed accelerator founded in 2010 by Dave McClure and Christine Tsai. The fund admitted a first "class" of twelve startups to its incubator office in Mountain View, Californ ...

, Miramar Digital Ventures, TenOneTen Ventures and others. In an interview with

Ars Technica ''Ars Technica'' is a website covering news and opinions in technology, science, politics, and society, created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews, and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, sc ...

, CEO Greg Cohn stated "we definitely think that communications, and telephony specifically, have been left behind by the wave of social innovation that’s been happening. The network should be smarter, it should be more socially aware and more privacy-aware." He has also stated that the long-term vision for Burner is to build technology where phone numbers are smarter and act more like software.

Features

Burner allows users to make phone calls and VoIP calls and send

SMS Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text ...

and MMS messages via phone numbers issued through the app. Users can purchase credits for temporary numbers or add an additional line for an ongoing subscription fee. The Burner Connections features, launched in October 2015, allow users to integrate their Burner numbers with third-party applications like Slack,

Google Sheets Google Sheets is a spreadsheet program included as part of the free, web-based Google Docs Editors suite offered by Google. The service also includes: Google Docs, Google Slides, Google Drawings, Google Forms, Google Sites and Google Keep. G ...

Dropbox Dropbox is a file hosting service operated by the American company Dropbox, Inc., headquartered in San Francisco, California, U.S. that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and client software. Dropbox was founded in 2007 ...

Evernote Evernote is a note-taking and task management application. It is developed by the Evernote Corporation, headquartered in Redwood City, California. It is intended for archiving and creating notes in which photos, audio and saved web content can ...

and

SoundCloud SoundCloud is an online audio distribution platform and music sharing website that enables its users to upload, promote, and share audio. Founded in 2007 by Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, SoundCloud is one of the largest music streaming se ...

. This functionality allows people to automatically archive SMS messages and images, program auto-responses, sync voicemails and more. In November 2015, Burner launched a way for developers to connect the app with various applications, like

IFTTT IFTTT (, an acronym of Conditional (computer programming)#If–then(–else), If This Then That) is a private commercial company that runs online digital automation Computing platform, platforms which it offers Platform as a service, as a servic ...

, or create new custom integrations through the use of

webhooks A webhook in web development is a method of augmenting or altering the behavior of a web page or web application with custom callbacks. These callbacks may be maintained, modified, and managed by third-party users and developers who may not nece ...

Finances

During the 2020

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

, the group received between $350,000 and $1 million in federally backed small business loans from

First Republic Bank First Republic Bank is an American full-service bank and wealth management company offering personal banking, business banking, trust, and wealth management services, catering to low-risk, high net-worth clientele, and focusing on providing p ...

as part of the Paycheck Protection Program. The organization stated it would help them retain 86 employees.

References

External links

* {{Official Android (operating system) software IOS software