AppsForBharat scoops up $10 Mn in series A round

AppsForBharat, a spiritual-tech company focused on building spiritual and devotional apps for Indian users, on Thursday said it has raised USD 10 million (about Rs 73 crore) in funding round led by Elevation Capital. The series A round also saw participation from existing investors, Sequoia Capital India and BEENEXT as well as Matrix Partners India, a statement said.

Angel investors like Scott Schleifer (Tiger Global Partner), Saurabh Gupta (DST Global Managing Partner), Ankush Sachdeva, ShareChat co-founders Farid Ahsan and Bhanu Pratap Singh, Utsav Somani (iSeed Partner), Anshumani Ruddra (Google Group Product Manager), Meesho co-founders Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal, and Cred founder Kunal Shah also participated, it added.

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The company will use the funds raised for creating content IPs, building the product, and hiring talent across the product, data and engineering verticals, the statement said. The company had secured USD 4 million in seed funding in April this year from Sequoia Capital India, BEENEXT, and WEH Ventures. Founded in November 2020 by Prashant Sachan, AppsForBharat aims to build a spiritual-tech company, which specifically addresses the underserved digital and spiritual needs of the Indian population.

It will include products that offer spiritual, devotional, wellbeing, and meditation-related tools, communities, and services. As we continue building AppsForBharat, we are putting together a great team that is customer obsessed and approaching it the right way focussing on user needs as well as driving delight and long-term retention,” Sachan said. SriMandir, the first product, aims to be the virtual destination for devotees to create their personalised shrines, consume devotional content, connect with prayer groups, and access a large library of spiritual texts, scriptures and videos.

Sachan had previously co-founded Trell, a largest lifestyle-content-community-commerce platform. 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,” Mayank Khanduja, Partner at Elevation Capital, said.