KOLKATA: A split second after you flash your visiting card at him, he
smirks and stares into your eyes. Before you even sit down, he is likely
to start telling you how you should "ideally" spell your name. Meet
Rohit K Singhania, who never calls himself a genius in occult practices.
"It's a simple calculation. There is something to do with a name. A
subtle tweak, addition, deletion or repetition of letters in it can
change the way people see you," claims the man who started out his
professional life with number-crunching, but has since then veered into
the arcane world of the occult. A Certified Practising Accountants (
CPA) diploma-holder from Australia, he started keeping books in places
like Sumitomo Mitsui, Axis Bank and Srei Infrastructure before launching
his occult start-up, iZofy.com, last December. "I have brought occult
science practitioners across all categories under one roof and created
the world's first virtual home for astrologers, numerologists, palmists,
tarot
card readers, vaastu consultants, psychics and healers," Singhania
says. "Here you can read, chat, find, consult and dissect your past,
present and future." But how did a commerce graduate from St Xavier's
College, Kolkata, who belongs to a family of textile merchants, come up
with such a unique start-up idea for which he was invited to the
prestigious Rise Conference in Hong Kong that began on Friday? The
occult bug first bit Singhania when he picked up a book on palmistry
"for time pass" while travelling in a train. The 17-year-old found it
gripping. Next, he started reading palms of some of his close friends.
His tryst with numerology began during that time. But the idea of
setting up a comprehensive occult start-up occurred to him while he was
hounded by friends and colleagues for a palm-check or a kundli scan
during his London stint as a financial analyst. "Almost everyone around
me used to claim that they didn't believe in it, but very few refrained
from showing their palms. There were quite a few offerings on the
Internet, but finding an occult practitioner across all disciplines and
suiting everyone's budget was a difficult task. It woke me up to the
idea of floating iZofy.com. My entrepreneurial DNA did the rest,"
narrates Singhania, aka "Mr iZO". A quick Google-search reveals there
are over 50,000 websites on the occult sciences around the world and the
top 10 sites receive over 15 million hits. "Roughly, there are around
5,00,000 astrologers in India. However, the experts in this industry are
losing on business for not being tech-savvy," Singhania adds. "iZofy is
offering them a platform to overcome this communication barrier and
connect them with a global audience." So, what is his take on Indians'
interest in occult practices? "Over 88% to 89% say they don't believe in
it. But they never forget to ask: 'Let me know what is there in store
for me.' People abroad are more interested in astrology as a science and
not a superstition. They do not believe in the stereotype of kundlis,"
says Mr iZO. Singhania is setting his sights on the US market around
March next year as 29% of Americans believe in astrology, according to a
poll. Just three months into its existence, iZofy.com has secured a
seed-funding of $5,00,000 from investment firm Prime Capital Markets, a
never-seen-before leap for a start-up dealing in occult practices. iZofy
now aims to mop up $1.5 million from investors around the globe to step
into the next level. "Being invited to the Rise Conference is a great
honour for us. It can provide a better exposure to tap more funds. With
the current trade volume touching $6 million, we are now aiming for a
$150 million business by 2020," adds Singhania, 33, chatting over a
cappuccino at Flury's on Park Street. Rise is a new tech conference,
organized by Web Summit, that gives 20,000 attendees, including
start-ups, enterprise leaders, fund houses and investors from around the
world a place to congregate and demonstrate how their companies are
changing the way we live. After its online foray, iZofy plans to set up
brick-'n'-mortar outlets for all sorts of occult services across big
cities in India. "By October this year, we will come up with a mobile
app that would give one-touch answer to people's queries. But my
ultimate dream is iZofy's listing on Indian bourses. So, wait for an
initial public offering by 2019-'20," signs off Mr iZo before melting
into the Park Street crowd.
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