Whereas residing within the U.S., the Trivedi household was in search of an answer to observe a ritual observe of worshiping at one among India’s Jyotirlingas — a holy illustration of the Hindu god Shiva. After looking on YouTube for tactics to supply flowers and different objects ceremonially on the Indian temple one Sunday in 2023, the household discovered a video about an rising devotional app known as Sri Mandir.
The app affords personalized movies of ceremonial prayers from greater than 50 Hindu temples in India and permits customers to take part in prayers, provide donations, and entry devotional content material just about from their iPhone or Android smartphone. That’s precisely what the Trivedi household was in search of.
It’s been a couple of yr, and the Trivedis are nonetheless utilizing Sri Mandir. One member of the family advised TechCrunch that the app helps customers do last-minute prayers and donate cash to the temple of their religion, even whereas residing removed from their dwelling nation and has entry to native temples and clergymen. But it surely comes with a reasonably excessive price: The typical month-to-month spend on Sri Mandir outdoors India is $100.
“Sri Mandir just translates rupees into dollars and costs a whole lot of money, which makes it an ultra-premium app, not for everyone with a low budget,” the person stated.
The app faucets right into a rising want. As a part of their years-old rituals, Hindus worldwide typically go to temples of the gods and goddesses they observe, provide donations, and take part in prayers seeking peace, well-being, or higher relationships. Nonetheless, entry to devotional providers and non secular info largely had been largely offline and unorganized in India.
Serial entrepreneur Prashant Sachan, who comes from a village close to Uttar Pradesh’s industrial metropolis Kanpur and beforehand co-founded social commerce startup Trell, based Sri Mandir’s guardian firm, AppsForBharat, in November 2020. He was seeing even individuals from rural India starting to return on-line, however seen nation’s devotional practices remained steadfastly offline.
“When I started experimenting, devotion was one behavior that I started thinking about because we thought this deserved the kind of attention that it hasn’t gotten,” Sachan stated in an interview.
The three-year-old app boasts greater than 30 million downloads since 2020, and simply opened its entry to markets outdoors India in January. Since then, Sachan advised TechCrunch, the app has grown 25% to 30% month-on-month and garnered 500,000 registered customers and a couple of.5 million installs outdoors India. Most of its world viewers comes from the U.S., adopted by Canada, the U.Okay. and the Center East.
Sachan stated the principle customers of Sri Mandir outdoors India are first and second-generation Indian-Individuals who don’t typically go to temples in India however wish to hook up with their roots.
This world footprint has helped Sri Mandir develop its revenues, which it generates from the small-ticket transactions customers make by way of the app by providing prayers and donations. At present, 25% Sri Mandir’s whole income comes from outdoors India.
Alongside enabling customers to attach with the temples of their religion, Sri Mandir helps clergymen in these temples get extra devotees, finally permitting them to earn extra money. By dedicating 5 to 6 hours every week to the app, a priest sometimes makes about 25% to 30% greater than their common earnings from every day operations.
Manoj, a priest at Trimbakeshwar Shiva temple, positioned within the city of Trimbak in India’s western state of Maharashtra, advised TechCrunch that Sri Mandir helps devotees, even those that aren’t bodily match however eager to take part in occasional prayers.
The priest will get 40 to 50 devotees by way of the Sri Mandir app weekly. He famous that the app additionally helps clergymen get extra funds from devotees — the app expenses particular person customers even for group prayers, whereas teams visiting the temple in particular person could not all pay individually. Manoj acknowledged, nevertheless, that it lacks the divine vibe that folks get by bodily being at a temple. He in contrast it to the distinction between taking medicines at dwelling and getting full remedy after being admitted to a hospital.
AppsForBharat now hopes to assist Sri Mandir attain extra much more customers. The Bengaluru-based startup has raised $18M in a Sequence B spherical led by Indian billionaire and tech veteran Nandan Nilekani’s Fundamentum Partnership.
Essentially the most downloaded app for Hindus
Sri Mandir is just not alone out there of devotional apps within the nation: DevDham, Vama.app and Utsav provide comparable choices.
Nonetheless, with 30 million downloads since 2020, Sri Mandir is the one Hindu-focused app among the many high 100 most downloaded devotional apps on this planet, in accordance with Sensor Tower knowledge shared completely with TechCrunch.
Bhagavad Gita in Hindi (2 million downloads) and Sanatan (2 million) are the opposite most downloaded world Hindu devotional apps since 2020, per Sensor Tower.
That stated, Sri Mandir is way behind globally in essentially the most downloaded devotional apps. In response to Sensor Tower, YouVersion Bible App (274 million downloads), Muslim Professional (132 million downloads), and King James Bible (122 million downloads) had been the highest three devotional apps since 2014.
Inside India, Bible App for Children (22 million downloads) and Muslim Professional (10 million downloads) are the 2 different most downloaded devotional apps — each trailing Sri Mandir.
On the revenues entrance, Hallow Prayer & Meditation is the highest-grossing app worldwide since 2020, the place customers have spent over $84 million on in-app purchases, per Sensor Tower. Sri Mandir, then again, has garnered lower than $100,000 in in-app purchases since 2020, in accordance with Sensor Tower.
That is decrease than the primary devotional app in India by shopper spending, the Joseph Prince Gospel Companion app, which has obtained over $300,000 in in-app purchases in India since 2020.
Subsequent up: Relgious tourism
With its newest funding spherical, AppsForBharat plans so as to add options with the aim of capturing 5% to 10% of what it believes is a $50 billion potential market.
Certainly one of them is non secular tourism by way of Sri Mandir.
Sachan advised TechCrunch the startup plans assist customers make plans to go to temples and pilgrimage websites by way of its platform, partially by hanging partnerships with conventional journey aggergators. The chief stated that non secular tourism pilots have already began with a choose group of devotees.
The app will even facilitate particular tickets for visiting sacred shrines and delivering prasad (meals choices to idols) and associated devotional items.
Additional, the startup plans to construct “a complex tech stack” with a CRM-like expertise for temples and historic locations in India. These providers will initially be accessible free of charge, however the firm finally plans to cost them for managing these providers, Sachan stated.
The startup additionally intends to develop its temple community 10x, to 500 temples, within the subsequent 12 to 18 months.
The corporate’s all-equity Sequence B spherical additionally noticed participation from Susquehanna Asia VC, in addition to AppsForBharat’s present traders: Elevation Capital, Mirae Asset VC and Peak XV.
