Horizontal is facing an existential funding crisis but we keep moving: this month, Tella hit 100,000 downloads across Android and iOS!

It’s hard to explain how significant this is: Tella is a niche app that we didn’t expect to be used by the average smartphone user; and yet, the number of downloads keep growing and the stories we hear from users give us the fuel to keep going. 

Hitting a threshold

We launched Tella in 2019. Initially users could only encrypt photos and videos, and fill out forms created by an organization they worked with. The app was first used by election monitors in Nigeria and Belarus. But despite limited functionality, the feedback we received confirmed that we were filling a gap for those who needed to protect their files and data on mobile. 

Six years later, we’ve come a long way. Tella now offers full-fledged file management so users can store, organize, and protect all types of files inside the app’s encrypted container. Tella can be camouflaged as a calculator–one of our most popular features! And those working with organizations can collect and upload data to a variety of repositories, from generic tools like Google Drive and Nextcloud to specialized ones like Uwazi and Kobotoolbox. 

And in March 2025, something changed. Perhaps it was that our feature-set hit a threshold; or Tella getting localized into new languages–21 as of today–and the ever more detailed documentation meant the app became accessible to more people; or maybe providing training and support to communities finally triggered a cascading effect of people talking about Tella and sharing it in their network. 

Whatever it was, we went from several dozen daily downloads to several hundreds–at times over a thousand–downloads every single day. As of today, Tella Android has been downloaded 92,000 times and Tella iOS 10,100 times. And beyond downloads, over 17,000 people use Tella each month. We’ve seen particularly high growth in places like India, Myanmar, and Nigeria. 

Still moving

As a human rights tech organization, it’s sometimes difficult to measure the impact of our work. But it’s not just the numbers: we hear from our users every day about how Tella is keeping them safe: journalists reporting in deeply repressive places; advocates collecting evidence of police violence; grassroots groups documenting environmental degradation by multinational corporations.

This is what keeps us going. This is why we work hard to continue improving Tella. And we’re not stopping here: in the coming months, we’ll release brand new features specifically geared toward users who face unreliable connectivity or internet shutdowns–which are increasingly frequent in contexts of social unrest or war. With the “Nearby Sharing”, users will be able to share files between Tella apps on mobile even without an internet connection. We will also introduce Tella Desktop, so users can transfer files from Tella on their phone to their computer without needing the internet and while keeping the files encrypted.

And of course, we continue making small, iterative improvements to the user experience and to the app’s performance.

Keep Tella alive

But we can’t talk about these exciting milestones without mentioning the challenges Horizontal faces. As part of Trump’s war on human rights, we lost the main source of funding that allowed us to continue improving Tella and ensure it remains secure. We are afraid for the future of our team but also for our community of users who rely on Tella to be safe. 

If you value the work we’ve been doing with Tella, please support us so we can overcome these difficult times! There are three main ways you can help:

  • Become a monthly donor or ask your organization to become a monthly supporter!
  • Hire us to build tech for you or tell your network about our new tech development arm, Horizontal Labs
  • Subscribe to Shira to build your organization’s resilience against phishing attacks!

Thank you for being with us on this journey ❤️
The Horizontal Team