This Indian-Based VR PLatform Can Bring You Closer To Your Gods

Kalpnik, a startup from Bengaluru, will bring you closer to your favorite Gods by capturing live blessings and pujas on VR Devotee, a virtual reality platform.

The interesting thing about this platform is that the number of registered temples has reached 150. The app has had more than 1.27 lakh downloads and the startup has succeeded in calling in $500,000 from investors.

VR Devotee is made from experience. 80 years are the years of combined work experience of the three founders including Ashwani Garg, John Kuruvilla, and Apul Nahata. Both John and Apul were entrepreneurs. John used to work for Air Deccan. He was also part of several different advertising companies. On the other hand, before he moved to Reliance Industries, Apul founded a startup specializing in telecom space which had had 17 million subscribers. John and Apul met each other at Reliance Industries while Ashwani was a neighbor of John. John has been an Intel’s head for more than a decade.

According to John, at around April 2016, when three of them had quitted from their positions, they had a meetup and discuss what to do next. That’s when the trio took the first steps in setting up their venture. Every idea they thought of had all been implemented by other startups.

That’s when observation and experience came in handy. They were in Mumbai for a dinner with Apul’s families when Apul’s parents talked about how they couldn’t go to a big ritual held at a temple due to their age. That’s when the three finally figured out what they wanted to do. They wanted to offer devotees with live religious prayers, not through TVs, but through virtual reality technology.

With that idea, they made an investment of Rs 55 lakh and registered the company. First, they needed buy-in from a religious center. So they decided to come visiting Lepakshi, Andhra Pradesh where John frequently paid a visit to an ancient temple. They shared the idea with the priest and he was thrilled since the temple would have more devotees watching prayers.

That’s when VR Devotee was founded. With a temple ready, the three installed high-end cameras where the worship is conducted. They began recording the rituals and prayers. The three encountered problems at the first two temples. However, they eventually overcame sine in the early days of a business model, learning and pivoting is everything.

There were two modes being offered at that time. The first one was with an app which would offer a closeness to the god but no virtual experience. The second one was with an app accompanied by a headset. For the first business model, all the temples signed up needed to pay for the use of the app.

The trio then realized that their model would never succeed. The summer of 2017 was when they decided to change their model by charging the consumers instead of the temples. The temples began promoting the app and more people started using the service. The monthly subscription fee is Rs 99 for access to all prayers. Since January 2017, the startup has gone commercial.

According to an investor, Bobby Reddy, the business of religion and spirituality is big and full of potential. People have used TVs, however, they don’t get to access to the deities upfront. Meanwhile, with virtual experience, people could get to make offerings like virtual fire, water, incense and flowers via the VR toggle and headset.

The app has 150 temples. According to John, the team had been working on the immersive experience, the depth of frames, how to transfer those frames without any latency. The company has joined in the battle against many religious services and online astrology companies. They also compete with television channels offering region as a cable TV service.

Indian media says that religion is a business worth $40 billion dollars. There aren’t any official reports about the size of the business. But everyone around the globe acknowledges a fact that India is known as a land of faith. To an Indian, religion is as significant as their salary.

However, there is an undeniable truth that in this digital age, even Gods need the help of technology to spread their message. It could be websites, cinema, TV, radio, etc. In the future, virtual reality will undoubtedly become a helpful tool to distribute information.