AppsForBharat, the Indian start-up behind the Hindu religious application Sri Mandir, has actually elevated $20 million in a brand-new round– simply over 9 months after securing $18 million— as the application remains to draw in not just followers yet additionally solid capitalist passion.
Susquehanna Asia Equity capital led the Collection C round, with engagement from existing capitalists, consisting of Indian billionaire and technology expert Nandan Nilekani’s Fundamentum Collaboration, Altitude Resources, and Height XV Allies.
Spiritual dedication runs deep in India, where there are 53 holy places for each 100,000 individuals. Virtually 2 million Hindu followers do petitions at home with regional clergymans or at holy places to look for tranquility and health. The Hindu holy place economic climate is worth ₹3.02 trillion (concerning $40 billion) or virtually 2.3% of India’s GDP, per a study by the Indian federal government’s National Example Study Workplace. In spite of this range, solutions consisting of petitions and offerings are greatly offline, messy, and fragmented. AppsForBharat states it’s fixing these difficulties with Sri Mandir.
Established in November 2020, AppsForBharat presented Sri Mandir soon after to offer Hindu followers with on-line petitions and the capability to make offerings practically to Indian holy places. The application has actually gathered over 40 million downloads given that its launch. In the previous one year, it has actually allowed 1.2 million followers to do on-line petitions and make offerings at greater than 70 holy places throughout India.
Currently, Sri Mandir has around 3.5 million regular monthly energetic customers, consisting of concerning 90,000 from outdoors India. While the application’s customer base continues to be mainly residential, its typical income per customer (ARPU) abroad is considerably greater– concerning 7,000 (about $81), contrasted to 600-800 ($ 7-$ 9) in India. Especially, virtually 20% of the system’s income originates from the Indian diaspora in the united state, U.K., UAE, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, according to the Bengaluru-based start-up.
At the same time, the variety of signed up Sri Mandir customers outside India is expanding at 15% quarter-over-quarter, getting to 700,000.
Locally, the application’s Indian customer base is equally divided in between tier-1 and tier-2 communities, with 30% of customers under the age of 35. Outside India, most of customers are males and females aged 30 and above.
At the beginning of 2025, Sri Mandir went beyond a $12 million run price, AppsForBharat owner and chief executive officer Prashant Sachan stated in a meeting.
The application additionally has a six-month retention price of about 55%, suggesting that over half its customers stay energetic 6 months after very first signing up with.
“The application has actually been absorbent and key due to the fact that these deals are something that the customer will certainly do throughout the year, several times a year,” Sachan informed TechCrunch.
Customer habits patterns differ by location. There is a 20% to 25% overlap in between customers in India that do both petitions and make offerings via the application. In the united state, the application sees an also greater overlap, with about 50% of its whole customer base participating in both tasks, as they are far from the Indian holy places.
While Hindu dedication solutions are greatly offline in India, some holy places have actually started online streaming and approving on-line offerings. In action, some applications have actually arised to handle Sri Mandir’s success. Nonetheless, Sachan specified that the completing applications incorporated would certainly represent just 15% to 20% of Sri Mandir’s collective installs.
Like various other on-line systems, Sri Mandir takes a cut from holy places to bring them online. The typical take price is 20% to 25%, yet it differs based upon the solutions provided. The start-up is additionally slowly presenting products such as product from recognized holy places to broaden its profits past petition and offering cuts.
Notably, Sri Mandir additionally aids enhance profits for holy places by 15% to 25% as they draw in even more followers online.
Remains to be the leading Hindu religious application
The spiritual application market has actually revealed development almost everywhere, yet especially in India. Around the world, the leading 10 spiritual applications experienced a 15% year-over-year boost in regular monthly energetic customers throughout the very first fifty percent of 2025, despite having a 2% decrease in downloads. India’s spiritual application market has actually exceeded this international pattern, with the leading 10 applications tape-recording 60% development in regular monthly energetic customers and 50% boost in downloads.
Paradoxically, while India’s spiritual application market flourished, Sri Mandir shed a little ground. The application placed amongst the leading 35 spiritual applications internationally and held the leading placement amongst spiritual applications in India throughout the very first fifty percent of 2024. This year, it went down to 2nd area in India, surpassed by LifeChurch.tv’s Holy bible application, which asserts to have greater than 80 million typical regular monthly energetic customers internationally.
Sri Mandir continues to be the leading Hindu religious application, nonetheless.
Total, spiritual technology financing in India reached its optimal in 2024, drawing in $50.5 million that year alone, while international financing in the area came to a head previously in 2021, complied with by a progressive decrease, according to Indian exclusive market tracker Tracxn in information shown to TechCrunch. India has actually made up 15% of the complete international financial investment in spiritual technology given that 2020, making it the second-largest market after the united state in regards to financing quantity.
AppsForBharat has actually become the leading start-up in this area, having actually elevated $33.4 million prior to its Collection C round, per Tracxn.
“Spiritual technology start-ups are significantly obtaining importance internationally, particularly in economic climates like India, owing to the value of society and religious beliefs amongst the market, incorporated with the surge in net infiltration, electronic settlements, and expanding fostering of shopping, particularly in tier-2-3 cities. We can anticipate this industry to expand better in the future,” a Tracxn speaker stated.
With the fresh financing, AppsForBharat strategies to purchase over 20 holy place communities in India, beginning with Varanasi and Ayodhya in the north state of Uttar Pradesh, Haridwar in Uttarakhand, and Ujjain in main India’s Madhya Pradesh. The start-up will certainly open up physical centers in these communities to develop logistics and satisfaction centers throughout its holy place network, handling the shipment of food offerings (prasad) and various other routine products.
Each of these physical centers will certainly take care of 40,000 to 50,000 orders and add to regional work, Sachan stated.
In addition, the start-up is boosting the customer experience on its application with AI-led functions, consisting of the capability to ask inquiries concerning belief, details petitions, and celebrations, which customers would generally ask a clergyman or their senior citizens.
The start-up will certainly collaborate with subject-matter professionals and release safeguards to stop circumstances of hallucination, where AI composes details by itself, Sachan stated.
AppsForBharat intends to accomplish productivity by 2027-28 and intends to be all set for a public listing throughout that very same home window, although Sachan stated he has no certain IPO timeline yet.
In the close to term, the start-up intends to expand its holy place base to 500 this year and broaden its head count from 300 individuals presently, consisting of 250 at its head office in Bengaluru, to concerning 400.
