AppsforbharatIndian startup behind Hindu Bhakti app Shree templeA new era has raised $ 20 million – just nine months after acquiring $ 18 million – because the app not only attracts devotees, but also strong investors interest.
Susquehanna Asia Venture Capital led the series C round with the participation of current investors, including Indian billionaire and tech veteran Nandan Nilkani’s Fundamentum Partnership, Elevation Capital and Peak XV Partners.
Religious devotion in India runs deep, where there are 53 temples for every 100,000 people. About 2 million Hindu devotees pray at home in local priests or temples to search for peace and welfare. Hindu temple is economy Price ₹ 3.02 trillion (According to a survey by the National Sample Survey Office, Government of India, about 40 billion dollars) or about 2.3%of India’s GDP. Despite this scale, services, including prayer and offerings, are largely offline, unorganized and fragmented. Appsforbharat says that it is solving these challenges with the Sri temple.
Established in November 2020, Appsforbharat soon launched the Sri Temple with the ability to serve Hindu devotees with online prayers and make offerings for Indian temples. The app has downloaded over 40 million since the launch. In the last 12 months, it has enabled 1.2 million devotees to pray online and offer offerings to more than 70 temples across India.
Currently, the Sri Temple has about 3.5 million monthly active users, including around 90,000 from outside India. While the user base of the app is primarily domestic, its average revenue abroad is much higher abroad compared to ₹ 600-800 ($ 7- $ 9) in India- approx (about $ 7,000 (about $ 81). In particular, according to the Bangalore-based startup, about 20% of the platforms come from the US, UK, UAE, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Meanwhile, the number of SRI temple users registered outside India is increasing in the 15% quarter, reaching 700,000.
Domestic, the Indian user base of the app is equally divided between Tier -1 and Tier -2 cities, with 30% of users under the age of 35. Outside India, most users are 30 years and older men and women.
In early 2025, Sri Mandir crossed the run rate of $ 12 million, Prashant Sachan, founder and CEO of Appsforbharat, said in an interview.
The retention rate of six months in the app is approximately 55%, which means that more than half of its users are active six months after the first inclusion.
“The app has been retainable and primary because this transaction is something that users do many times a year,” Sacha told Techcrunch.
User behavior patterns vary by geography. India has 20% to 25% overlap between users who both pray and offer offerings through the app. In the US, the app sees another more overlap, about 50% of its entire user base is entangled in both activities, as they are far from Indian temples.
While Hindu devotional services are largely offline in India, some temples have started accepting live streaming and online offerings. In response, some apps have emerged for the success of Shri Temple. However, Sachan said that jointly competing apps would be responsible for only 15% to 20% to 20% of the cumulative installs of SRI temple.
Like other online platforms, Shri Temple cuts them from temples to bring them online. The average tech rate is 20% to 25%, but it varies depending on the services offered. Startup is also gradually introducing goods like goods from known temples to expand its revenue beyond prayer and offer cuts.
Importantly, Shri Temple also helps to increase the revenue from 15% to 25% for temples as they attract more devotees online.
Top is Hindu devotional app
The religious app market has shown growth everywhere, but especially in India. Globally, the top 10 religious apps experienced a 15% year-on-year increase in monthly active users during the first half of 2025, even with a decline of 2% in downloads. India’s religious app market has surpassed this global trend, in which the top 10 apps have registered a 60% increase in monthly active users and a 50% increase in downloads.
Contradictory, while the religious app market of India bounced, Sri Mandir lost a little ground. This app is one of the top 35 religious apps globally and topped the religious apps in India during the first half of 2024. This year, it came in second place in India, beyond the Bible app of Lifechurch.TV, claiming that more than 80 million average monthly active users are globally.
The Sri Temple, however, remains the major Hindu devotional app.
Overall, religious technical funding in India reached its peak in 2024, attracted $ 50.5 million that year alone, while in 2021, there was already global funding in space, followed by gradual decline, according to the Indian private market tracker, in data shared with Techcrunch. India has taken 15% of the total global investment in religious technology since 2020, which is the second largest market after the US in terms of funding volume.
Appsforbharat has emerged as a leading startup in this space, raised $ 33.4 million before its series C round, per tracxn.
“Religious technical startups are rapidly gaining prominence globally, especially in economies like India, due to the importance of culture and religion among demographic, internet penetration, increase in digital payments, and with increasing adoption of e-commerce, especially in Tier-2-3 cities, we can expect to move forward in the near future.”
With fresh funds, Appsforbharat is planning to invest in more than 20 temples cities in India, which begins with Varanasi and Ayodhya with Ujjain in Haridwar in the northern state, Haridwar in Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh, Central India. Startup will open physical facilities in these cities to create logistics and supply hubs in its temple network, which will manage the distribution of food offerings (offerings) and other rituals.
Sachan said that each of these physical facilities will handle 40,000 to 50,000 orders and contribute to local employment.
Additionally, the Startup is increasing the user experience on its app with A-LED features, including confidence, specific prayer and ability to ask questions about festivals, which users will usually ask a priest or their elders.
Startup will work with subject matter experts and deploy safety measures to prevent examples of hallucinations, where AI makes information on its own, Sachan said.
Appsforbharat aims to gain profitability by 2027-28 and plans to be prepared for a public listing during the same window, although Sochan said that he has no fixed IPO timeline yet.
In the near period, the purpose of the startup is to increase the base of its temple to 500 this year and currently expand their headcounts from 300 people, including 250 at their headquarters in Bengaluru, up to 400.
