Priyanka Chopra, Deepika Padukone, and Malaika Arora: celebrities who have invested in startups
Indian celebrities like Deepika Padukone and Priyanka Chopra have not only endorsed startups and their products but have also invested in them. We look at women celebrities who have put their money in startups.
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Indian celebrities have invested in startups as early as 2011 when Karishma Kapoor invested in BabyOye, the Mumbai-based kids clothing brand. In 2014, Madhuri Dixit invest in GOQii, a wearable and preventive healthcare startup.
In the last year and a half, sport stars and Bollywood stars invested in startups and even endorsed their products, including a long list of women celebrities.
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L-R: Malaika Arora, Alia Bhatt, Priyanka Chopra, Shilpa Shetty and Deepika Padukone
Deepika Padukone
Deepika Padukone has invested in startups such as Mumbai-based Drums Food International, which is the parent company of Epigamia, the flavoured yogurt brand. Part of Epigamia’s recent Series C funding round of Rs 182 crore, Deepika also invested an undisclosed amount. The investment was made through KA Enterprises LLP, which is a corporate entity owned by the actor. This is her first investment in a consumer FMCG brand. She is also a partner and strategic advisor to the brand.
She has also been seen in Epigamia advertisements endorsing the product.
Deepika has also invested in Bellatrix Aerospace. An IISc-incubated spacetech startup, Bellatrix Aerospace raised $3 million in Pre-Series A from a group of venture capital investors, including Deepika Padukone (through KA Enterprises).
Priyanka Chopra
Priyanka Chopra has invested her time and energy in multiple projects, including her production house. However, she has also turned into a tech investor in 2018. She invested in startups such as the US-based Bumble, a social and dating app when it made its entry into India in 2018. The app is available in both English and Hindi on iOS and Android, and Priyanka is an advisor there. Bumble was founded in 2011 by Whitney Wolfe Herd.
Priyanka has also invested in the US-based Holberton School, which is a project-based alternative to college for software engineers.
Shilpa Shetty
Shilpa Shetty, who launched her own health and fitness app earlier this year, has invested in Gurugram-based Mamaearth. She was the brand ambassador and an early investor in Mamaearth, founded by husband-wife duo Ghazal Alagh and Varun Alagh.
These investments are not just for the sake of parking their money in a startup. As Shilpa Shetty had told HerStory in an earlier interview about her investment in the baby and mothercare startup,
I really have a lot of belief in people who are very enterprising and have passion. They want to do things they believe in and I am willing to put money into them. That’s how Mamaearth happened.
Malaika Arora
Malaika Arora recently backed SARVA, a Mumbai-based fitness startup. Founded in 2016 by yogi-turned-entrepreneur Sarvesh Shashi, SARVA has presence in cities like Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Delhi.
Malaika was a part of the $6-8 million funding round along with other marquee investors. This list of investors includes global icons and celebs such as singer Jennifer Lopez.
Alia Bhat
Alia Bhat invested in StyleCracker in 2018. Mumbai-based StyleCracker ships out curated and personalised boxes with apparel, accessories, beauty, and footwear. In an earlier interview with YourStory, Alia had shared,
Today, women in our country juggle so many roles; this leaves us with no time for ourselves. StyleCracker enables us to be the best version of ourselves. This is very empowering and I genuinely believe that every person deserves to look and feel good. So being a part of the company was an easy decision.
(Edited by Dipti Nair)
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