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Alik Sakhno
correspondent
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Halyna Panchenko
Content Director
The company conducted over 3 million consultations last year. Photo: OBRIO
How much can you make from astrology? Once upon a time, this belief system was only profitable in private practice. Now it is a global market. In the US alone, there are about 90 companies that have developed mobile applications for astrological forecasts. Millions of people around the world believe that their lives are governed by the stars – and it is these beliefs that help entrepreneurs make money.
According to Business Research Insights, the global market for astrology mobile apps will reach $4.75 billion in 2025, and grow to $12 billion by 2030. And deals are happening in this market. In 2023, one of the companies developing astrology apps , the American Kasamba, was sold for $40 million.
The manager of the multi-profile holding Genesis, Alexander Fedorov, convinced shareholders back in 2021 that this market is growing rapidly and that it is worth investing in it. The OBRIO company , which is part of Genesis, has developed an application for astrological forecasts. This program was called Nebula — it is a marketplace in the niche of spiritual development. They offer their services, customers buy, and the application operator earns on commissions and subscription fees. In 2023, OBRIO's expected revenue from subscriptions, or contracts (ARR), amounted to about $50 million. (The company does not comment on the financial indicators of its activities for 2024 and 2025). The main customers of the application, developed by Ukrainian programmers, are Americans.
How they manage to sell horoscopes in the digital world, what are the company's plans for the future? OBRIO's operations director, Serhiy Matveyev, told this in an interview with Delo.ua. and Product Director Oleksandr Lychak .
Previously, you had 500 expert consultants on the marketplace, how many do you have now, and how do you select them?
Serhiy : Currently, 1,602 experts are working with us. We select them both through social networks, including LinkedIn, and we select a team. In addition, experts go to the site and submit applications themselves. Or they recommend their colleagues. We use advertising.
And how many consultations do you have per year?
Serhiy : Last year, 3.2 million consultations were conducted. This is almost 15 million minutes that experts spent in chats. If we talk about the time of foundation in 2021, the growth was more than three times.
And which services bring the most profit?
Oleksandr : We have a single subscription for users for all content, regardless of the topic. That is, hypnotherapy for stress relief and, say, a compatibility check cost the same. Then we offer consultations with experts, where the price depends not on the direction, but on the level of the expert.
We give users the opportunity to communicate for 3-5 minutes for free to understand whether this expert is right for them, and only after they understand that everything suits them, they decide whether to continue using the service.
How do you pay for the work of these experts?
Serhiy : As for the board, they are full-time team members on a salary. And marketplace experts receive a percentage of each minute of consultation. I won’t say exactly what it is, because the conditions are individual. On average, the normal percentage for the market is 40–50%, but it depends on the expert.
A consultation costs from $1-2 per minute, and top experts can charge up to $10 per minute. The minimum salary of an expert is somewhere around $600-700 per month, and those who work more can earn several thousand dollars. It all depends on the number of consultations, their duration, and workload. The model is similar to Uber or Glovo: someone works a couple of hours a day, and someone works full-time.
How is the activity of your consultants regulated?
Serhiy : It all depends on the country. There is no regulation from our side, because each expert works with Nebula under a contract. Of course, we carefully check each specialist before taking him on the platform. If you mean professional certification or state supervision, there is none.
For example, in the US there are no restrictions on who can become an astrologer or similar expert. But we have our own requirements and rules within the platform. It is important to understand that not only astrologers work on the platform.
And who else?
Serhiy : We call them experts, because they can be tarologists, numerologists, specialists in meditation, breathing practices, rituals, etc. It's a big mix of different specialists.
We clearly limit the topics that experts can communicate with users. For example, they are prohibited from giving advice related to medical issues or health. There are also written instructions in case a person is having suicidal thoughts. In this case, the expert should provide contacts for help services in a specific country, and not advise themselves.
Oleksandr : I would like to note that currently we have less than 5% of purely astrological content. Over the past two years, we have moved away from this significantly, but we have left some things at the request of the audience.
In general, we use an individual approach to each client. Experts understand that each person has their own needs and each tool covers these needs differently. Therefore, we consult exclusively with real experts. The content is formed from three sources: user data; canons of astrology (or other spiritual practices); AI-model, which unites all this. At the same time, we also involved experts in the formation of the AI-model. Therefore, as a result, for example, two users with the same zodiac sign receive different forecasts – because they provided different personal data.
You said that astrology is only 5% of the content now. And what is the rest?
Oleksandr : Users come to us not for horoscopes, but to solve relationship problems, get expert advice, find support for dealing with anxiety, sleep problems, etc.
Regarding content, we collect data from users and generate content using artificial intelligence. Then it is checked by our experts. This is not just automatic generation – each material is moderated and validated by a board of experts who are well-versed in astrology, tarot, palmistry, meditation practices, etc. Currently, there are 8 experts on the board.
How do you select experts for consultations?
Serhiy : We are not tied to any specific country, there are only requirements for the level of knowledge and expertise. We are looking for specialists all over the world. Some of them are from Ukraine, because we have many cool specialists in this topic, some are from other countries. Many of them have international certificates, which we check.
When we started launching our marketplace, we found a very famous expert. He helped evaluate the first specialists. That's how our board was formed. We won't mention names, because it's a non-public story.
From public cases — for example, Jennifer Fried, a world-famous astrologer, PhD from the USA. She advises Hollywood stars. Fried had a hand in creating our functionality for improving relationships. However, she is not part of the board and did not participate in the selection of experts.
How do you control the quality of consultations?
Serhiy : The main criterion is customer feedback. We have a five-point star rating system and text feedback. We constantly collect this feedback and analyze the customer satisfaction index.
There is a trial and additional period so that the expert can improve his performance. If the satisfaction level is low and does not improve even after the help of the board and the education department, we are forced to say goodbye to him.
For example, the average expert rating from users around the world is 4.8 out of 5, which is a very high figure. In the US, we have over 160 thousand reviews and the app's rating is 4.6.
But on Playmarket, your app's rating is 3.5 points.
Serhiy : This is not an assessment of consultations, but an assessment of an application for the Android OS in Ukraine. We are not currently focused on the Ukrainian market at all.
And which markets are you targeting first?
Serhiy : Mainly the USA, Great Britain, Canada, Australia. We also work with Spanish-speaking countries: Latin America, Spain, partly France. For experts, there is an internal product – NebulaX, through which they conduct consultations, with the possibility of on-the-fly translation, if necessary.
What is the current level of the company's assessment according to internal or external assessments?
Oleksandr : Our specific goal right now is to reach a valuation of $1 billion. This is something we openly talk about inside and outside the team. We want to create a world-class brand built by Ukrainians. The company already has a strategy called “Nebula Unicorn Club.”
OBRIO team in the office. Photo: OBRIO
And how much is the company currently valued at?
Oleksandr : We cannot publicly announce the valuation, since the company is private. Internally, of course, we estimate it. Our potential is over a billion dollars. But we cannot disclose specific figures, especially those related to investor expectations, for obvious reasons.
Serhiy : We conduct an internal assessment of the company, but this is our subjective assessment.
What role does parent company Genesis currently play in your business and strategic decisions?
Serhiy : Genesis provides good administrative support and consulting. But all the decisions — where to go, which markets to develop, which products to launch — we make independently. Genesis does not influence these issues, except to advise or help with the network. We make all business decisions completely autonomously, including large investments.
It's been a year since your product transitioned to a transactional model. How has Nebula's revenue structure changed? What share is now subscription-based and what share is transaction-based?
Serhiy : We haven't completely switched to a transactional model. It exists in parallel with the subscription model. That is, the user can choose: to be on a subscription, to pay for consultations in chats as needed, or to combine both options. Both sources of monetization remain important for us. We also have a flexible system – there are no mandatory hourly sessions, but there is payment per minute. The user communicates as much as he needs. And again – no pressure or obligation to continue the conversation.
What other categories do you plan to add to the spirituality sphere? Psychology? Coaching? Human Design?
Serhiy : Three years ago, when we added a transactional model, we realized that we needed to go beyond astrology and significantly expand the product and content. Especially since 2022, when stress levels increased sharply due to the war, breathing practices, visualizations, meditations, hypnotherapy, affirmations became popular.
Oleksandr : The topic of archetypes is very popular now, based on surveys. By the way, we also started working with shadow work, a technique at the intersection of psychology and spiritual practices that helps people better understand themselves and their needs.
In addition, we are exploring the direction of yoga and eastern practices. Because often in Ukraine yoga is perceived as a mat exercise, although in reality it is a much broader philosophy and system of practices. This area is growing very much.
Which direction is growing the most dynamically and where will you direct your efforts?
Oleksandr : We can say that archetypes have become a growth driver in 2024. Serhiy's educational team helps experts better understand these topics and prepare high-quality content, because there have been more requests for consultations on archetypes. We managed to take up this trend before others, and we began to be actively copied.
If marketing shows a good response to a certain type of spiritual practice, we scale it up. Plus, we continue to develop classic areas: tarot, meditation, astrology. In the future, we expect that the demand for consultations related to working with past experiences, shadow work, as well as breathing practices, meditations, rituals will increase. This is currently actively developing in the world
What do you think has been the key factor in Nebula's success in the North, South American and European markets in such a short time?
Oleksandr : There were already players in this market who had been working here for 20 or more years, real mastodons. And when Nebula appeared, we became that startup that took its place thanks to innovation.
Our business story began with the idea of maximally personalized marketing. For example, when we launch an ad about meditations to combat anxiety, the user, after clicking through, completes a short survey, and then receives an individual program with content and practices that meet their needs.
We created a separate track for each need with analytics: working with relationships, dealing with anxiety, or sleeping problems. We understand in detail where the user came from, what their pain points, problems, and needs are, and based on that, we provide personalized content.
Another important factor is the high standards of hiring the team. When I joined, we had about 30 people, now we have over 300, and we continue to actively grow. By the way, we recently received an award from Forbes as the best employer in the country for the highest eNPS – employee satisfaction index.
Are these 300 people working specifically in Ukraine, or are you already scaling up?
Serhiy : Approximately 80-85% work in Ukraine. But there are already some employees abroad. We have three offices – Kyiv, Lviv and Warsaw. In addition, part of the team works remotely from different countries, mainly from Europe. However, so far all specialists are Ukrainian.
