Virtual spiritual platform, Vama, has raised $500,000 as a top-up to its seed round, which took place in March this year. The startup has closed its seed round at $1.25 million.
This top-up round was led by Filipino investor-entrepreneur, Lisa Gokongwei-Cheng, with participation from The Fund, a US-based pre-seed fund made up of over 500 founders and operators. 7Square Ventures, Supermorpheus and Harit Nagpal, Vama’s existing investors, also participated in this round.
With the closure of its seed round, the startup has so far raised a total of $1.5 million in funding.
Founded in late 2020 by Acharya Dev, Himanshu Semwal and Manu Jain, the Delhi-based startup provides a virtual platform for e-pujas, e-darshans, and astrology services through its app.
Through its platform, it aims to bring temples’ services to an online medium for users across the country. The app is available on Android and iOS devices. The app has provided around 150,000 astrology consultations & virtual puja until now.
Through this fundraise, the spirituality platform intends on expanding its service portfolio as well as geographical expansion to international markets such as the West Asia, US, and Canada.
“Our focus will be on expanding our workforce and technological expertise. With more devotees shifting to the online medium for their religious requirements, we aim to capitalise on the 100x growth potential of virtual footfalls,” said Manu Jain, co-founder of Vama while commenting on the extended seed funding.
Commenting about the investment, Lisa Gokongwei-Cheng said, “Vama targets a large and established market, and has a business model that may prove recession-proof”
The spirituality platform had earlier raised $750,000 in March this year as part of its seed funding round.
The spirituality tech apps have seen an upsurge in investments since the pandemic. Last year, in September, AppsForBharat, raised $10 million in a Series A funding round led by Elevation Capital. In the same period, Emerging Vision, an online spiritual wellness company raised $4 million from its Series A funding round led by Lightspeed.