Spiritual-tech startup AppsForBharat changing the way we worship and pray

Most behaviours have gone digital during the pandemic period. But spirituality as a space is yet to migrate to online mode. Sensing the opportunity, AppsForBharat, a Bengaluru-based spiritual-tech startup, backed by Sequoia Capital has built its app, Sri Mandir that is trying to change the way we worship and pray. In its mission to enable billions of Indians in their spiritual and devotional journey, Sri Mandir app has come up with many features to do digital worship. In a conversation with Bizz Buzz, Founder of AppsForBharat, Prashant Sachan said the company sees the platform as a mental wellness app that enables many devotees to attain the path of spirituality. Notably, India’s religion and spirituality market was valued at $44 billion in 2021, and is projected to grow at 10 per cent CAGR between 2022-27. The Sri Mandir app has already touch 10 million downloads and more than 3.5 million active users. With growing internet penetration, the company is looking at cashing in the emerging opportunities in this space in coming years. The company is planning to launch in key markets like the US and Europe apart from being available in various languages

AppsForBharat is an app that is trying to capture a huge market that is present in spirituality space. How did the journey begin? Can you throw some light on this aspect?

While I was doing my Mechanical Engineering in Kanpur, I was building my own ventures. In my first venture, I was trying to make T-shirts, merchandises and selling it to college students. I was trying hard as a student for scaling up but it was not scaling up. So, I was always thinking what could I build that can scale up beyond a point. At that point of time, I heard about tech entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley who wrote codes, developed apps and got a lot of users in a month. I was fascinated. That’s when the desire of trying to make app came within me. I thought if I could make app that could touch tens of millions of people every day, that would be magical. Then, I got admissions into IIT Mumbai in Masters in Design programme. This was around 2012-14 and this was the time when Ola like startups got started from the same campus. Then I joined Samsung where I was responsible for localising ChatON messenger for Indian market. ChatON is similar to WhatsApp. My background is that I come from a family of farmers and through my experience on ChatON, I was able to understand what in India the tier-III, IV cities look like and how large is the opportunity. I also learnt how to use data. That gave me the inspiration to build something for the masses. In mid-2016, I started building Trell. I was there for four years. I left 2020 as I had a difference of opinion about how I wanted to build the app. After that, I started experimenting on few ideas. I was searching for those areas which were yet to migrate to online from offline and the behaviours which were not digital yet. My family is very spiritual and most families across the world are like that. That’s how the journey for AppsForBharat started. I got very encouraging response initially. In India, we worship idols. So, the way we approach spirituality in the east, is different from the west. In India, the path of spirituality is through devotion. So, AppsForBharat is a mental wellness app for India.

What kind of downloads have you seen for the app? Can you throw some light on the user base growth in recent time?

We have seen rising user base for our app. We have just reached 10 million downloads and we have 3.5 million monthly active users. As far as growth rate is concerned, we see 10-15 per cent growth rate month-on-month basis. Currently, we have services around Hinduism as a faith. Over the years, we may add more faiths. For other faiths, there are many popular apps.

Can you throw some light on the kind of features that are available on the Sri Mandir app? What sort of services the platform provide that are not available on other digital platforms?

When a user opens the app, he or she is able to choose the gods. For example, if you are a devotee of Lord Shiva, then you get your digital shrine. So, what you see on your phone is a bunch of shrines where you can pray by using digital tools. Under digital tools, a devotee gets digital flowers, shawls, many more offerings and others. This you can do every single morning. If you want to listen to bhajans, mantras, chalisha or want to do a guided tour, you can do that. Secondly, we have given all the tools and literatures at one place. So, a user can find all the puranas, vedas in the literature section. Thirdly, the platform provides daily recommendations depending on the devotee’s behaviour. On top of it, we have given access to other pilgrimages. For instance, if today is an auspicious day and you want to do puja in any specific shrine, the platform enables that. As far as booking a purohit and other related services are there, those are not available on the platform yet but we are going to launch them soon. Currently, our focus is on the digital praying behaviour and launching the platform on many languages. Today, our app is available in Marathi, Gujarati and Hindi, we are in the process of launching it on south Indian languages, Odia, Bengali, and others. We are also working on launching our app in other markets like US and Europe.

Are you adequately funded now? Are you planning to raise further capital to fund the expansion plan?

We have raised two rounds of funding. In the first round, we have raised seed funds from Sequoia. It was followed by series A funding by Elevation Capital. We have adequate amount of capital.

Are you close to be breakeven? Can you throw some light on this aspect?

We are not breakeven now but our revenues are growing 20 per cent month-on-month. Our revenue is more than our marketing expenses today and we are hopeful that in the next one year, we will get to the breakeven point. In this space, there is a need for high investment in technology aspects.

What kind of challenges the platform may face in the next three years?

For every platform, it has to be mindful of its users. If you are serving your users well, they will make sure that the platform survives and wins. So, the challenges are more internal. Any platform will require right kind of mindset, processes and people to win the trust of users.

How do you view the competition in the spiritual space?

We respect the competition. As a platform, we are focused on our users and offerings. If users have more options tomorrow, that is good for the ecosystem.