OMI is funded by Nexus Venture Partners and plans to improve wellbeing of 10 million users in next 5 years
Prashan Agarwal, ex-CEO of Gaana and Co-founder of online real estate marketplace, PropTiger, has teamed up with Aniket Lila, ex-Nexus Venture Partners, to launch OMI, an online spiritual and wellness platform that aims to combine ancient vedic methods with new-age lifestyle.
OMI is available for download in Google Playstore. 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 $10 billion.
“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. 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”, said Cofounder & CEO Agarwal.
“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. 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.,” added Cofounder & COO Aniket.
Pratik Poddar, Principal at Nexus Venture Partners, said: “We’re excited to partner with Prashan and Aniket. This is a very deeply India specific problem, with very large existing profit pools. No one has addressed the market in a millenial 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 $10b market!”
Prashan is an alumnus of IIT Kanpur and ISB alumnus, and was most recently the CEO of Gaana, India’s largest music streaming service. At Gaana, he was instrumental in growing the business from 10 mn monthly active users to more than 180 mn active monthly users and raised more than $200 mn from Tencent to build Gaana into a household brand. Prior to that, he had cofounded PropTiger.com, India’s largest real estate transactions marketplace. Lila is a graduate from 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, Prashan said: “Primarily, the funding will be used to hire talent across product, technology, and operations. We are looking to onboard leaders with passion for the stage and who want to help us build OMI from Day 0.”
“Our aim is to improve the wellbeing of 10 million people in 5 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 personalized remedy plan which include 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 Aniket.