In a predominantly secular British society, it might appear that there is no longer a great deal of money to be made in the UK’s Christianity market. However, the $250 million valuation of a new app, Glorify, invented by church-going British entrepreneur Ed Beccle, suggests that may not be the case afterall.
22-year-old Beccle is already a serial entrepreneur having earlier this year sold his previous company, the digital mentoring platform Grasp, to the coaching company Hintsa Performance for an undisclosed sum. Mr Beccle’s Grasp co-founder was Henry Costa, who he is again working with on Glorify.
Glorify, which was only set up in February of this year, has recently attracted a $40 million (circa. £30 million) investment round led by Andreessen Horowitz, one of Silicon Valley’s most renowned venture capital investors. It has previously made early stage investments in apps including Facebook, Twitter and Airbnb.
The VC firm was joined in the round that valued Glorify at $250 million by Softbank, the Japanese conglomerate often referred to as the world’s biggest tech investor, and celebrity investors Michael Buble, the Canadian singer, and reality TV star Kris Jenner. The two co-founders still hold a combined majority stake in their app worth over $100 million.
Glorify positions itself as an alternative to the popular mindfulness apps Calm and Headspace that is specifically designed for Christians. It offers users bible passages, daily prayer trackers and streams Christian music. The freemium app that charges £6.99 a month for extra material has already been downloaded 2.5 million times and has over 1 million daily users.
Mr Beccle told The Telegraph newspaper that he invented the app in church, saying:
“I come up with all my ideas in church. My mind would float to all sorts of places and I’d think about how I could creatively solve things.”
The 22-year-old entrepreneur was born in Hong Kong but attended school in Oxford and believes Glorify’s success has been helped by being launched during the Covid 19 lockdown early this year when people were unable to attend churches in person. He said:
“We’re not trying to replace the church, we’re a supplement to it. And I think it’s just as important because it’s that touch point of coming in every day.”
London-based Glorify already employs roughly 60 staff. There are employees in Brazil and an office on the USA’s west coast is planned. Mr Beccle said his hope is that Glorify will offer an alternative to social media apps like TikTok and Instagram that he sees as making it difficult for people “to disconnect”.