AppsForBharat, a spiritual-tech company focused on building apps to service the spiritual and devotional needs of Indian users, has raised $10 Mn in a Series A funding round led by Elevation Capital with participation from existing investors Sequoia Capital India and BEENEXT as well as Matrix Partners India.
This round also featured leading angels like Scott Schleifer (Partner, Tiger Global), Saurabh Gupta (Managing Partner, DST Global), Ankush Sachdeva, Farid Ahsan and Bhanu Pratap Singh (Co-founders, ShareChat), Utsav Somani (Partner, iSeed), Anshumani Ruddra (Group PM, Google), Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal (Co-founders, Meesho), and Kunal Shah (Founder, CRED).
The company will use the funds raised for creating content IPs, building the product, and hiring talent across the product, data and engineering verticals. Previously, in April 2021, the company had secured $4 million in seed funding (announced recently) from Sequoia Capital India, BEENEXT, and WEH Ventures.
Founded in November 2020 by Prashant Sachan, AppsForBharat is a product studio whose aim is to reimagine and digitize the experience of engaging with one’s faith. Through AppsForBharat, Sachan’s vision is to build a spiritual-tech company, which specifically addresses the underserved digital and spiritual need of the Indian population, by offering a unique user experience on their smartphones. The apps will attempt to move these large offline behaviours to an online platform with the aim of creating a digital habit. Currently, no other company has attempted to reimagine this space for faith on one’s digital device in such a comprehensive manner, according to the press release.
Prashant Sachan, Founder, AppsForBharat, said, “Our aim is to build products that users love, one that becomes a daily habit for a billion Indians, products that offer happiness and peace. If someone (reading this) is passionate about building products for such needs, we invite them to join our team.”
SriMandir, the first product, aims to be the virtual destination for devotees to create their personalized shrines, consume devotional content, connect with prayer groups, and access a large library of spiritual texts, scriptures and videos. For more in-depth engagement, users can participate in personalized pravachan (discourses) and virtual Satsang, make offerings to temples, and even consult with astrologers and priests.
Mayank Khanduja, Partner, Elevation Capital, said, “As early investors in multiple content and social platforms, we have been close witnesses to the need gap for devotional platforms. When we met Prashant and heard his vision behind AppsForBharat, we instantly knew this is a business we want to be partners in. As we spoke to the users, we realized that the product is satisfying the needs of a very wide distribution of audience across age groups, geographic locations and income brackets.“
