Ex-GlobalBees President Damandeep Singh Soni Joins Astrotalk Store As CBO

SUMMARY

Damandeep Singh Soni, who quit Globalbees in August last year, will lead Astrotalk’s new ecommerce venture

Astrotalk entered the ecommerce segment with the launch of Astrotalk Store last year, and currently sells gemstones, healing stones, and other accessories

In November last year, Astrotalk appointed former Google executive Siddharth Prakash Singh as its first CTO

Damandeep Singh Soni, the former president and chief business officer of GlobalBees, has joined spiritual tech startup Astrotalk’s ecommerce venture, Astrotalk Store, as its chief business officer, sources told Inc42.

As per his LinkedIn profile, Soni quit Globalbees in August last year. Prior to that, he worked with D2C startups such as boAt, MilkBasket, among others.

Astrotalk founder and CEO Puneet Gupta confirmed to Inc42 that Soni would head the startup’s ecommerce business.

Astrotalk entered the ecommerce segment with the launch of Astrotalk Store last year. It currently sells gemstones, healing stones, and accessories like bracelets via it.

“We are thrilled to welcome Damandeep Singh Soni as the head of our ecommerce vertical. After building a INR 1,400+ Cr ARR business in astrology consultations, our customers expressed a growing need for a trusted source for all their spiritual product purchases. With Daman’s extensive experience in scaling ecommerce businesses, we are confident and bullish about transforming this vertical into another INR 1,000 Cr ARR business in the coming years,” Astrotalk cofounder and CEO Anmol Jain said.

Founded in 2017 by Gupta and Jain, Astrotalk provides online consultation services by astrologers. It forayed into the spiritual ecommerce segment to expand its offerings and shore up its revenue.

In November last year, Inc42 exclusively reported that Astrotalk had appointed former Google executive Siddharth Prakash Singh as its first chief technology officer.

On the financial front, Astrotalk’s net profit zoomed over 1,000% to INR 100 Cr in FY24 from INR 8.47 Cr in the previous fiscal year. Operating revenue skyrocketed 129.81% to INR 651.12 Cr during the year under review from INR 283.32 Cr in FY23 on strong demand for its services.

In June last year, Astrotalk raised INR 110 Cr in a mix of primary equity infusion and secondary share sale. At the time, the startup said it would use the proceeds to expand its offerings in regional languages. Overall, it has raised a total funding of over $33 Mn to date and counts the likes of Left Lane Capital and Elev8 Capital among its investors.

It competes with the likes of Astrosage, AstroYogi, AstroBuddy, Ganeshaspeaks, AppsForBharat, and other unorganised players and independent astrology service providers.