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Ex-Gaana CEO Prashan Agarwal launches spiritual wellness platform OMI
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.
eNews
Paisabazaar launches Credit Premier League 2.0
Nationwide campaign rewards highest credit scores with Rs 1 lakh top prize.
MUMBAI: When credit scores become a national league, even your CIBIL report starts feeling like it’s playing in the IPL and Paisabazaar has just kicked off the second season. Paisabazaar, India’s leading marketplace for financial products and the country’s largest free credit score platform, has announced the return of the Credit Premier League (CPL) 2.0, a fun, nationwide initiative to recognise and reward individuals with the highest credit scores.
Building on the success of the first edition, CPL 2.0 introduces higher rewards and broader participation. The individual(s) with the highest credit score in the country will win Rs 1 lakh, while state champions will each receive Rs 10,000. Additionally, all participants from the winning state, the one with the highest average credit score will also be rewarded.
All winnings will be credited directly to winners’ PB Wallet, allowing them to pay credit card bills, recharge mobiles, or settle utility bills seamlessly on the Paisabazaar platform.
Paisabazaar CEO Santosh Agarwal said the campaign aims to make credit awareness more engaging and mainstream. “With CPL, we are bringing together engagement, gamification and rewards to make conversations around credit scores more mainstream,” he noted. “Our focus remains on building a financially aware and credit-healthy Bharat.”
The first edition of CPL saw over 5.5 million participants, with the highest individual score touching 861. Delhi recorded the highest average credit score of 746.
Consumers can participate simply by checking their free credit score on the Paisabazaar platform or app. The CPL leaderboard and rankings will be available exclusively on the Paisabazaar App.
In a country where financial dreams are serious business, Paisabazaar has found a smart way to turn credit scores into an exciting game – because when your financial health gets rewarded, everyone wants to play.
