AppsForbharatIndian startup for the Hindu appointment Sri MandirHe collected $ 20 million in the new round – just over nine months after securing $ 18 million – because the application still attracts not only admirers, but also strong interest of investors.
Susquehanna Asia Venture Capital led the round of series C with the participation of existing investors, including the Indian billionaire and veteran of Nandana Nieblekani Foundation Partnership, Elevation Capital and Peak XV Partners.
Religious devotion works deep in India, where there are 53 temples for every 100,000 people. Almost 2 million Hindu fans carry out prayers at home with local priests or in temples to look for peace and well -being. Hindu temple economy is worth 3.02 trillion (about $ 40 billion) or almost 2.3% of India GDP, according to the survey conducted by the National Test Research Office of India. Despite this scale of the service, including prayers and victims, they are largely offline, unorganized and crushed. AppsForbharat claims to solve these challenges with Sri Mandir.
Established in November 2020, AppsForbharat introduced Sri Mandir shortly after to serve Hindu admirers with internet prayers and the ability to submit offers to virtually the Indian temple. The application has won over 40 million downloads since its launch. Over the past 12 months, it has enabled 1.2 million lovers of online prayers and make victims at over 70 temples in India.
Currently, Sri Mandir has about 3.5 million active users per month, including about 90,000 outside India. Although the application base of the application remains primarily national, its average revenues on the user (ARPU) abroad are much higher – about 7,000 ₹ (about USD 81), compared to 600–800 ₹ (7-9 USD) in India. In particular, almost 20% of the platform revenues come from the Indian diaspora in the USA, Great Britain, Zaa, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, as per startup from Bengalur.
Meanwhile, the number of registered SRI Mandir users from outside India is growing at 15% of the quarter, reaching 700,000.
In the country, the Indian base user base is evenly divided between level 1 and level 2, with 30% of users under 35 years old. Apart from India, most users are men and women aged 30 and more.
At the beginning of 2025, Sri Mandir exceeded the $ 12 million stake, said the founder and general director of AppsForbharat, Prashant Sachan in an interview.
The application also has a six -month retention index of about 55%, which means that more than half of users remain active six months after the first joining.
“The application was retention and basic, because these transactions are something that the user does all year round, many times a year,” said Sachan.
User behavior patterns vary depending on geography. Users in India overlap from 20% to 25%, who make both prayers and submit offers via the application. In the USA, the application sees an even higher overlap, and about 50% of the entire user base is involved in both activities because they are far from Indian temples.
While Hindu Donation Services are largely offline in India, some temples began broadcasting live broadcast and accepting online offers. In response, some applications for Sri Mandir's success appeared. However, Sachan stated that combined competitive applications account for only 15% to 20% of the cumulative Sri Mandira installations.
Like other internet platforms, Sri Mandir downloads a cut from temples to bring it online. The average bioting rate is from 20% to 25%, but varies depending on the services offered. The startup also gradually introduces items such as goods from famous temples to expand your revenues beyond prayer and offering cuts.
Importantly, Sri Mandir also helps to increase the revenues from temples by 15% to 25%, because they attract more lovers online.
He is still the best Indian apprentice
The religious application market has shown growth everywhere, but especially in India. Globally, the 10 best religious applications have experienced a 15% increase in the number of active users during the first half of 2025, even with a 2% decrease in downloads. India religious application market exceeded this global trend, and the 10 best applications recorded a 60% increase in the number of active users and 50% download increase.
Paradoxically, while the Indian religious application market spread, Sri Mandir lost its small ground. The application was in the top 35 religious applications around the world and occupied the highest position among religious applications in India in the first half of 2024. This year it fell to second place in India, overtaken by the Lifechurch.tv biblical application, which claims that it has over 80 million average active users around the world.
However, Sri Mandir remains a leading Hindu devotional application.
In general, the financing of religious technologies in India reached their peak in 2024, attracting $ 50.5 million this year, while global financing in space reached the peak earlier in 2021, and then a gradual decrease, according to the Indian private tracker of the tracxn market in data made available from TechCrunch. India accounted for 15% of the total global investment in religious technology since 2020, which makes it the second largest market after the US in terms of financing.
AppsForbharat appeared as a leading startup in this space, because it collected $ 33.4 million before the Count C series, on tracxn.
“Religious technological startups are increasingly gaining all over the world, especially in economies such as India, due to the importance of culture and religion among demographic, in combination with the increase in internet penetration, digital payments and the growing acceptance of e-commerce, especially in levels-2-3.
Together with fresh financing, AppsForbharat plans to invest in over 20 temple cities in India, starting with Varanasi and Ajodhja in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, Haridwar in Uttarakhand and Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh in Central India. The startup will open physical objects in these cities to create logistics and implementation center in its temple network, managing the offer of food (Pragad) and other ritual elements.
Sachan said that each of these physical objects serves from 40,000 to 50,000 orders and will contribute to local employment.
In addition, the startup increases the user's experience in its application thanks to the functions directed by AI, including the possibility of asking questions about faith, specific prayers and festivals that users usually ask a priest or their elders.
The startup will work with experts with the subject and implementation of security to prevent the occurrence of hallucinations in which AI creates information himself, said Sachan.
AppsForbharat aims to achieve profitability up to 2027–28 and plans to be ready for a public list in the same window, although Sachan said that there is no specific IPO schedule yet.
In the near future, the startup aims to increase the temple base this year to 500 and expand employment from 300 people, including 250 at the headquarters in Bengalur, to about 400.
