India is the land of spirituality. From Apple’s Tim Cook to The Beatles’ George Harrision, a number of famous foreigners have turned to India to find spiritual enlightenment and the meaning of life.
However, over the last few years, an increasing number of young Indians have also started to make efforts to reconnect with their faith and satisfy their spiritual thirst. The rising digital connectivity in the country has given this further boost, making it “cool” to create reels and post pictures of spiritual tours. As a result, the Indian religious and spiritual market, which stood at $58.56 Bn in 2023, is expected to clock a CAGR of 10% until 2032.
While the Covid-19 pandemic hit the spiritual tourism market hard, it also created opportunities for entrepreneurs to provide tech-enabled solutions. For the startups operating in the spiritual tech space before the pandemic, the stay-at-home restrictions provided a big boost to the top lines.
As per Tracxn data, India is currently home to over 900 spiritual tech startups. These startups facilitate e-darshan, e-pooja, and prasad delivery at the doorstep.
During the Ayodhya temple inauguration earlier this year, many of these startups, including VAMA and AppsForBharat, contributed in streamlining the holy experience for the devotees. While VAMA offered virtual ‘kathas’ and provided an immersive temple experience, AppsForBharat conducted poojas in Ayodhya, allowing global participants to engage in rituals from their homes virtually.
The spiritual tech startups also see strong demand from non-resident Indians (NRIs), allowing them to connect to temples, astrologers, and priests of their choice. Besides, these startups generate nearly 70% of their revenues from the young generation (25-35 years).
As a result, spiritual tech startups like Astrotalk have been seeing strong growth in profitability as well as revenue. This has evinced further interest from investors in the spiritual tech sector, which seems poised to grow multifold over the coming years.
So, without further ado, let’s take a look at some of the spiritual tech startups operating in the country.
Meet The 9 Spiritual Tech Startups Transforming India’s Faith Market
Editor’s Note: This is neither an exhaustive list nor a ranking of any kind. We have listed the startups alphabetically.
AppsForBharat
Founded by Prashant Sachan in 2020, AppsForBharat was set up with a vision to make spiritual journeys easily accessible to all devotees.
In 2021, the startup launched its flagship app Sri Mandir, which lets users create a virtual temple on their phones, enabling them to perform pooja, light diyas, and offer flowers. It offers access to over 50 temples, allowing devotees to participate in poojas, make offerings and access devotional content from home.
The startup is backed by marquee investors, including Elevation Capital and Peak XV Partners. Earlier this year, the Bengaluru-based startup raised $18 Mn (around INR 151.1 Cr) in its Series B funding round led by Nandan Nilekani’s VC fund Fundamentum.
Astrotalk
Founded by Puneet Gupta and Anmol Jain in 2017, Astrotalk is a prominent astrology player in the Indian spiritual market. The startup provides online astrological services with over 15,000 active astrologers on its platform and claims to have served more than 4 Cr users to date.
As the startup is eyeing expansion globally, it recently announced a new business line with a focus on the spiritual ecommerce space. However, the name of the new venture has not been disclosed yet.
On the financial front, Astrotalk’s profit more than tripled to INR 94 Cr in the financial year 2023-24 (FY24) from INR 27 Cr in the previous fiscal.
DevDham
Founded by Pranav Kapoor, Suyash Taneja, and Sagnika Chowdhury in 2020, DevDham is a spiritual tech platform facilitating daily and live darshan, online poojas and digital donations for devotees.
The startup has partnered with over 150 temples across 16 Indian states. It also has its ecommerce segment “Abhimantrit”, offering spiritual products including rudraksha and idols among others.
The Noida-based company recently raised INR 6 Cr in its seed funding co-led by Titan Capital, All In Capital, Veda VC and TDV Partners.
InstaAstro
Another Indian startup leading the astrotech space is InstaAstro with over 5000 astrologers on its platform, catering to over 5 Mn customers to date.
Founded in 2021 by Nitin Verma, InstaAstro is an online platform offering astrology services. It claims to offer multiple services, including astrology horoscope predictions, live chat/call sessions with astrologers and tarot card reading.
The Noida-based startup recently bagged INR 18.5 Cr (around $2.3 Mn) in a Pre-Series A funding round led by existing investor Artha Venture Fund to onboard new talents, build its brand presence and expand its footprint across southern pockets and globally.
Japam
Founded by Ritoban Chakrabarti in 2022, Japam is a D2C startup that sells
Known to be one of India’s fastest-growing D2C startups, Japam was founded by Ritoban Chakrabarti in 2022. The startup is an ecommerce marketplace for spiritual jewellery.
It would initially sell a few Rudraksha wearables like bracelets and malas on its website. It has expanded its product portfolio to include gold-plated bracelets, necklaces, idols and wall hangings.
The Mohali-based company claims to have served over 3 Lakh Indian customers.
Melooha
Adding another astrotech startup to the list, Melooha is an astrology SaaS platform offering personalised guidance based on an individual’s unique birth details, including their specific date, place and time of birth.
With a presence in over 110 countries, the startup also claims to leverage artificial intelligence to its astrological offerings.
Founded by Vikram Labhe and Bahlchandra Patil in 2022, Melooha recently acquired language translation and astrological guidance startup Munitalks in an undisclosed cash and stock deal.
Temple Connect
Reducing the gap between pilgrim and the pilgrimage, Temple Connect facilitate users to connect with global Hindu temples virtually. It also provides an option to do “e-poojan”. The startup has onboarded over 7000 temples on its platform so far.
Founded by Giresh Kulkarni in 2016, Temple Connect provides all the necessary information regarding a temple to the devotee.
The startup was also associated with the inauguration of Shri Ram Janmbhoom Mandir, to help with queue management, scanning, and facilitating hassle-free entries for devotees to enter the temple premises.
Utsav App
From virtual pooja to prasad directly from the temple at the devotee’s doorstep, the Utsav App offers tech-enabled religious services in different languages.
The Kolkata-based startup claims to have over 1 Lakh active users across India with 10,000 connected religious communities.
Founded by Sourajit Basu, Prajata Samanta and Ankita De in 2021, the startup counts IndiaQuotient and 100X.VC among its key investors. `
VAMA
Bridging the gap between spirituality and technology, VAMA offers digital services like e-poojas, e-darshans, astrology and spiritual blog posts. It has partnered with over 250 temples and has a network of more than 300 astrologers.
Founded by Aacharya Dev, Himanshu Semwal and Manu Jain in 2020, the startup recently joined the government-backed Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) to provide its offerings to more consumers.
In 2023, the Delhi NCR-based startup raised $1.5 Mn (INR 12.5 Cr) as a top-up to its seed funding round led by Wavemaker Partners to expand its team, boost product development and strengthen its tech capabilities.
[Edited By Vinaykumar Rai]
