Working in niche space, OnlinePrasad has raised undisclosed amount in an angel round led by Hyderabad Angels along with participation from The Chennai Angels and individual Angel investors.
Investors who participated in this round include Srini Koppolu, former MD of Microsoft India; R Ramraj, founder of Sify and senior advisor of Sequoia Capital; and Niraj Mital, co-founder of Magna Infotech.
As part of the deal, Niraj Mital will join the board of the startup.
OnlinePrasad offers a platform for devotees who are unable to visit a temple, one can make online offerings for a basic charge of INR 501 per offering which can go up to INR 51,000 for specialised offerings. The company then offers the prasad at the desired temple itself, after which it is delivered to the devotee’s address in 5-7 days.
OnlinePrasad was started by 26-year old Goonjan Mall, a BITS Pilani alumnus in 2012. The startup has been seed funded by K Ganesh and Meena Ganesh and The Morpheus, a startup accelerator step by Nandini Hiranniah and Sameer Guglani.
The funds raised in this round will be used by the company to scale up its front end and back end operations. In the next 12 months, OnlinePrasad plans to grow its head count from 12 to 50 and double its temple network to 100. Further, the startup is also working to add around 10 new product categories, some which would include at-home astrology and pundit services.
A $4 Bn unorganized market comprising of myriad religious products, services, and offerings provides a huge space of growth for a startup working in this category.
