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While living in the U.S. , the Trivedi sept was looking for a solution to follow a ritual praxis of worshiping at one of India ’s Jyotirlingas — a holy representation of the Hindu god Shiva . After searching on YouTube for ways to proffer flowers and other items ceremonially at the Indian temple one Sunday in 2023 , the kinfolk found a picture about an emerging devotional app calledSri Mandir .
The app offers customize videos of ceremonial prayers from more than 50 Hindu tabernacle in India and allows users to take part in prayers , offer donations , and get at devotional content virtually from their iPhone or Android smartphone . That ’s on the dot what the Trivedi family was count for .
It ’s been about a twelvemonth , and the Trivedis are still using Sri Mandir . One family member secernate TechCrunch that the app helps users do last - minute prayer and donate money to the tabernacle of their faith , even while residing far from their home nation and has access to local temple and priests . But it comes with a fairly high cost : The average monthly spend on Sri Mandir outside India is $ 100 .
“ Sri Mandir just understand rupee into dollar and costs a whole caboodle of money , which gain it an radical - premium app , not for everyone with a low budget , ” the user said .
The app taps into a turn need . As part of their eld - old rituals , Hindus worldwide often visit temples of the God and goddess they follow , offer donations , and participate in prayer in search of peace , well - being , or better relationship . However , entree to devotional services and religious information had been for the most part offline and unorganized in India .
Serial enterpriser Prashant Sachan , who comes from a village near Uttar Pradesh ’s industrial city Kanpur and antecedently co - founded social commerce startup Trell , founded Sri Mandir ’s parent company , AppsForBharat , in November 2020 . He was seeing even mass from rural India beginning to come online , but note the country ’s devotional recitation remained firmly offline .
“ When I started experimenting , devotion was one behavior that I started thinking about because we thought this deserved the form of attention that it has n’t acquire , ” Sachan said in an interview .
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The 3 - twelvemonth - honest-to-goodness app boasts more than 30 million downloads since 2020 and just opened its access to markets outside India in January . Since then , Sachan secern TechCrunch , the app has grown 25 % to 30 % month - on - month and has garnered 500,000 registered exploiter and 2.5 million installs outside India . Most of its global interview get from the U.S. , be by Canada , the U.K. and the Middle East .
Sachan pronounce the main user of Sri Mandir outside India are first and second - propagation Amerind Americans who do n’t often visit temples in India but want to connect to their roots .
This global step has assist Sri Mandir grow its revenues , which it generates from the small - just the ticket transactions users make through the app by offering appeal and donation . presently , 25 % of Sri Mandir ’s entire gross comes from outside India .
Alongside enabling users to connect with the temples of their trust , Sri Mandir helps non-Christian priest in those temple get more devotees , eventually allow them to earn more money . By give five to six hours a calendar week to the app , a priest typically makes about 25 % to 30 % more than their regular income from casual cognitive operation .
Manoj , a non-Christian priest at Trimbakeshwar Shiva temple , located in the townspeople of Trimbak in India ’s western body politic of Maharashtra , tell TechCrunch that Sri Mandir helps devotees , even those who are n’t physically fit but keen to participate in occasional prayer .
The non-Christian priest gets 40 to 50 devotees through the Sri Mandir app weekly . He mention that the app also helps priests get more payment from fan — the app charges individual users even for group prayers , whereas radical visit the temple in person may not all give one by one . Manoj recognize , however , that it lack the elysian vibration that people get by physically being at a temple . He compared it to the conflict between take medicine at home and getting complete handling after being admitted to a infirmary .
AppsForBharat now hopes to help Sri Mandir reach even more users . The Bengaluru - base inauguration has leaven $ 18 million in a Series B round conduct by Native American billionaire and tech veteran Nandan Nilekani ’s Fundamentum Partnership .
The most downloaded app for Hindus
Sri Mandir is not alone in the market of devotional apps in the country : DevDham , Vama , and Utsav extend similar offerings .
still , with 30 million downloads since 2020 , Sri Mandir is the only Hindu - focus app among the top 100 most downloaded devotional apps in the world , according to Sensor Tower data point shared only with TechCrunch .
Bhagavad Gita in Hindi ( 2 million downloads ) and Sanatan ( 2 million ) are the other most download global Hindi devotional apps since 2020 , per Sensor Tower .
That aver , Sri Mandir is far behind globally in the most download devotional apps . According to Sensor Tower , YouVersion Bible App ( 274 million downloads ) , Muslim Pro ( 132 million downloads ) , and King James Bible ( 122 million downloads ) were the top three devotional apps since 2014 .
Within India , Bible App for Kids ( 22 million downloads ) and Muslim Pro ( 10 million downloads ) are the two other most download devotional apps — both trailing Sri Mandir .
On the revenues front , Hallow Prayer & Meditation is the highest - gross app worldwide since 2020 , where consumers have spent over $ 84 million on in - app purchases , per Sensor Tower . Sri Mandir , on the other hand , has garnered less than $ 100,000 in in - app purchases since 2020 , according to Sensor Tower .
This is lower than the number one devotional app in India by consumer spending , the Joseph Prince Gospel Partner app , which has welcome over $ 300,000 in in - app purchase in India since 2020 .
Next up: Religious tourism
With its latest funding bout , AppsForBharat plan to supply features with the end of capturing 5 % to 10 % of what it believes is a $ 50 billion potential market .
One of them is religious tourism through Sri Mandir .
Sachan assure TechCrunch the startup intends to aid users make program to inflict temples and pilgrimage sites through its platform , in part by strike partnerships with traditional traveling aggregators . The executive director said that religious touristry pilots have already started with a select chemical group of lover .
The app will also help particular just the ticket for chat hallowed shrine and delivering prasad ( food offerings to idols ) and come to devotional goods .
Further , the inauguration plan to build “ a complex tech stack ” with a CRM - like experience for temples and historical places in India . These services will initially be available for free , but the company eventually contrive to file them for managing those services , Sachan said .
The startup also intends to develop its temple net 10x , to 500 temples , in the next 12 to 18 month .
The company ’s all - fairness Series B stave also saw involvement from Susquehanna Asia VC , as well as AppsForBharat ’s existing investors : Elevation Capital , Mirae Asset VC and Peak XV .
