has raised $1.5 million in a funding round co-led by Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm
Accel and early-stage venture capital firm
Arkam Ventures.The round also saw participation from Weekend Fund, along with angel investors including Sumer Juneja, managing partner for India and EMEA at SoftBank, and Sarthak Mishra, partner at SoftBank India.
Founded in 2025 by Maahin Puri and Nitesh Kumar Niranjan, the Delhi-based
Vedic astrology platform offers personalised consultations via a curated pool of astrologers, supported by an artificial intelligence (AI) engine that decodes complex astrological data.
The funds will be used for expanding the core team, strengthening its model, and building a community of Vedic astrology experts, Puri said.
While astrology is a large market in India, with the country’s spirituality market estimated at around $58 billion, only 1.5–2% of it is online, he said.
AnuvayaLabs Technologies, the parent company of Vaya, is “aiming to build a trusted platform” for the mass-premium segment of the market, Puri told ET.
“The AI is used to take over much of the heavy lifting that astrologers don’t need to do—such as understanding different planetary positions, assessing the strengths of planets, and performing calculations—so they can focus on what they know best, which is, human intuition and experience,” he said.Launched two months ago,
Vaya currently has around 11 in-house astrologers, with each session averaging 40 minutes. It follows a pay-per-minute model, offering time bundles that start at five minutes and extend to 20 and 40 minutes.
It aims to serve people in India as well as non-resident Indians (NRIs), with a focus on markets such as the US, followed by Canada.
“Currently, our user base is primarily from metro cities—mainly tier 1 cities—with users who mostly speak English and Hindi. Mumbai and Delhi are our largest markets right now, followed by Bengaluru,” Puri said.
According to him, Vaya has 30,000-40,000 registered users on its platform.
“India’s spiritual and astrology services present a massive market opportunity. The horoscope segment alone in India is valued at nearly $10 billion. Yet, the consumer experience remains fragmented, informal, and largely offline,” said Rahul Chandra, managing director of Arkam. “This is a sector primed for large-scale digital transformation.”
Commenting on the investment, Manasi Shah, vice president at Accel, said, “AI is transforming massive consumer spaces, enabling solutions to serve previously unmet needs. We are looking for the rare founders who blend cutting-edge technology with deep customer insights.”
Vaya is competing with the likes of New Delhi-based startup Astrotalk, which last raised $14 million in a financing round led by Elev8 Venture Partners.
Earlier, ET reported that devotional platforms are expanding their reach beyond India, targeting the affluent and culturally connected Indian diaspora to boost both sales and subscriber numbers.
