Mumbai: Prashan Agarwal, ex-CEO of Gaana and co-founder of PropTiger, has teamed up with Aniket Lila, ex-Nexus Venture Partners, to launch OMI, an online spiritual and wellness platform.
OMI aims to combine ancient Vedic methods with a new-age lifestyle. It has received an undisclosed amount of funding from Nexus Venture and is looking to disrupt the spiritual wellness market in India that is valued at more than $ ten billion, the platform in a statement on Wednesday.
"Today the world is faced with a multitude of changes in our life in terms of the way we live, we connect, we embrace, unprecedented things we go through and this has had an impact on the spiritual, devotional, and mental wellbeing of all of us," Agarwal said. "Alongside, the internet and digital payment penetration amongst the Indian population is at an all-time high and growing. These dynamics make the market ripe for innovation in this category."
"We are disrupting what is nearly a 4000-year old market in India by bringing the best of what ancient India has to offer to millennials through a convenient, private, holistic, and personalised platform," Lila said. "OMI will be your personal spiritual guide. Our mission is to make the world a happier place. Most Indians are spiritual and this presents us with a blue ocean opportunity."
"We're excited to partner with Prashan and Aniket. This is a very deeply India-specific problem, with very large existing profit pools," said Nexus Venture Partners principal Pratik Poddar. "No one has addressed the market in a millennial-centric way and made a product-first, scalable and trustworthy solution. Having known the founders for many years, I am very excited to get a chance to work with them to crack this $ ten billion market!"
Prashan is an alumnus of IIT Kanpur and ISB alumnus. At Gaana, he was instrumental in growing the business and raised more than $ 200 million from Tencent to build Gaana into a household brand. Lila is a graduate of Northwestern University and was most recently part of the investment team at Nexus Venture Partners, India’s largest home-grown VC.
On the undisclosed amount of funding from Nexus Venture Partners, Agarwal further said, “Primarily, the funding will be used to hire talent across product, technology, and operations. We are looking to onboard leaders with a passion for the stage and who want to help us build OMI from Day zero.”
“Our aim is to improve the wellbeing of ten million people in five years and create the largest spiritual wellness community in the world. Starting out, on the OMI platform, you can consult with our ‘Astro Guides’ and get a personalised remedy plan which includes activities like meditation, chanting mantras, affirmations, and journaling. Currently, we are focusing on aggregating a fragmented supply and building a trusted brand. As OMI scales, you will see us expanding and adding many more services on the platform aimed at helping you improve your spiritual wellness," added Lila.
OMI is available for download in Google Playstore.
