THE GODS HAVE gone mobile. From a darshan at your favourite temple and getting prasad delivered home to buying puja essentials and consulting an astrologer, the esoteric has come to e-commerce. And everyone’s loving it.
The stars certainly seem to have aligned for the next booming sector in India’s online space―faith tech. It includes a range of services in the devotional and astrology space being offered by intrepid entrepreneurs through apps that a user can access from anywhere. Want to light a lamp at the Ram temple in Ayodhya but cannot travel all the way? There is a faith tech app that will do it for you at just around 100 bucks, and send you a video of the same. Want to fix an auspicious date for a ceremony or hire a pandit, or make a donation or get a ritual done? They will do it for you.
“The way you should look at it is pretty much like how an app like Swiggy gives access to food, or Blinkit gives access to grocery and other daily need items, or Netflix gives access to content,” said Prashant Sachan, founder of the app Sri Mandir, which gives “access to devotional information and services”. The app has the backing of investors like Nandan Nilekani.
There are at least 1,000 faith-based startups like Sri Mandir. ShubhPuja and DevaSeva offer temple visits, puja booking, holy texts; AstroTalk and Paavan offer daily horoscope, personalised consultations and even life coaches; OnlinePrasad.com and Phool sell gemstones, incense sticks and puja essentials.
The segment is still nascent. Despite the palpable religious fervour in India, the evolution of this space took its own sweet time. Plain vanilla websites offering to make temple donations on behalf of the devout and kundli software were popular right from the late 1990s, but they never became mainstream. In fact, even after shopping, food delivery and social interactions moved online after the advent of smartphones and cheap data in the 2010s, faith tech took time.
The pandemic was the game-changer. During lockdown, many conservative temple authorities realised that online was the only option going forward. There has been no looking back since then, especially with the rise of NRIs as a sizeable and rich client base, as well as Hindu nationalism becoming an establishment trend for over a decade now, making religiosity something to be flaunted.
And investors rushed in, with funding ballooning to nearly Rs500 crore last year alone. “It is an exciting space that is just getting ready to grow exponentially,” said former Miss India Vanya Mishra. “The real opportunity lies in making ancient wisdom more relevant to modern lives, whether it is through immersive experiences or AI-powered self-discovery tools.” Mishra is the co-founder and CEO of Astrosure.ai, an AI-powered astrology platform.
Astrology is a big component of the current boom, though some purists argue that it should not be put under the category of faith tech as such. “Even from the plain dot-com era of the internet, astrology was one of the more popular areas,” said Meena Kapoor, who started her career making content for websites. As the app culture grew, she got into the action with the AstroYogi platform, which uses technologies like character AI and augmented reality to create virtual astrologers. You want an old, sagely kind of astrologer? You get him. Or you want a young one? Presto! Here he is. “Technology has evolved with video chats and realtime consultations; it has become so much more immersive,” said Kapoor.
Whatever that may be, the fact remains that ancient beliefs are getting a technological makeover, which appeals to a whole new audience. The audience for faith tech cuts across ages, but, surprisingly, a majority are youngsters.
“People come to me and say, ‘I start my day with this particular app. It has made me feel way more meaningful’. That sort of impact was the key driving force for me,” said Sachan of Sri Mandir.
It is already an overcrowded space, especially astrology. And there are allegations and counter-allegations on authenticity and veracity. Punit Pandey, founder of AstroSage, pointed out a case where an astrologer was trying to blackmail a user. “Once we had to warn an astrologer to not suggest all those expensive remedies. Then, three months down the line, we realised that he had suggested remedies worth Rs2 lakh to a customer.”
Pandey believes that authentic faith tech apps have a role to play in guiding people. “People ask us where do we buy these gemstones? 95 per cent of gemstones in the market are fake!” he said.
The market is still underpenetrated, as many temples are yet to come on board―perhaps the reason why most Indian players are still not thinking much about going international. Globally, religion online is big business. Apps like YouVersion Bible and Muslim Pro have millions of users spread across more than hundred countries. There is even an app that gamefies one’s Bible experience!
For Indian apps, the scope of growth is immense for two reasons. One is that only a minuscule of the country’s large population has taken to virtual darshans and e-pujas so far. Second is the very nature of Hinduism, with its pantheon of gods, multitude of temples and varied observances, rituals and ceremonies.
India’s gargantuan population numbers mean even a minority religion runs into crores of prospective customers to be tapped. By that logic, Indian faith tech may be forgiven for not zeroing in on prospects abroad, yet.