The existence third largest As the world’s startup ecosystem, India has more than 100 unicorns. While venture capitalists, business angels, businesspeople and high net worth individuals (HNIs) fund burgeoning startups, bollywood Celebrities have bet on the startup ecosystem.
Aside from acting, many smart celebrities from the Indian entertainment industry have turned into startup investors including Amitabh Bachchan, Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Madhuri Dixit, Shilpa Shetty, John Abraham, Deepika Padukone, Ayushmann Khurrana, Shahid Kapoor and Jacqueline Fernandez among other.
The latest addition to the club is the Bollywood actor Varun Dhawan who invested an undisclosed amount in a cloud kitchen company remedy and also inked a “long-term attachment” that makes him the brand ambassador of EatFitthe flagship brand among Curefoods.
YourStory takes a look at some of the recent star power investments:
Athiya Shetty|Level3
This March, Bollywood Actors Athiya Shetty invested an undisclosed amount Stage3 from New Delhi, a community-driven fashion and lifestyle social commerce platform. Athiya will take on the role of Creative Director of Stage3.
Launched in 2015 by Sabena Puri, Stage3 is a full-stack fashion social commerce marketplace that converges content, social interactions and commerce. It offers its digitally native customers a curated, discovery-driven, hyper-personalized shopping experience and interacts directly with India’s creator economy of more than 5 million influencers and content creators.
The startup employed a social following of more than 500,000 and a strong fashion ecosystem with over 2000 celebrities, stylists, designers and influencers who will power the future of e-commerce.
The startup also recently launched Rs 20 crore by well-known investors such as Blume Ventures, Inflection Point Ventures, Nueva Ventures, Eragon Ventures, Let’s Venture, Stanford Angels, Ananth Narayanan (Founder, Mensa Brands), Dinesh Aggarwal (CEO, India Mart) and Sashwat Nakrani (Co-Founder, Bharat). Sports).
Samantha Ruth Prabhu|SustainKart
March 2022 Indian actress Samantha Ruth Prabhuwho made her debut in Bollywood with family man-2invests in SustainKart, an e-commerce marketplace for sustainable products. Your investment is part of SustainKart’s seed round. The startup also announced the launch of its first retail franchise model.
SustainKart will use the Seed Round’s fund for marketing purposes for customer acquisition and to provide offline retail stores with a unique in-store customer experience.
2021 founded by With a bun and Shilpa ReddyHyderabad-based clean and green products aggregator, SustainKart is a brand that offers a range of sustainable and eco-friendly products ranging from fashion to decoration, beauty and wellness, furnishings to gifts, nutrition and snacks, child care, pet care, etc . are sufficient .
It is a platform that currently hosts over 1000 brands and 85000 SKUs with the aim of innovating homes with conscious products.
The startup’s mission is to change how Indians spend their lifestyle goods. The goal is to become a unicorn by 2023.
SustainKart claims to have reached several milestones since its launch in January 2021. These include raising a pre-seed round, launching a private label and acquisition two D2C brands.
Varun Dhawan|Healing Food
April 2022 Bollywood actor Varun Dhawan made an investment in a Bengaluru-based cloud kitchen operator remedy. The startup has developed a long-term connection with him, making him the brand ambassador for EatFit, a Curefoods brand.
Dhawan’s investment in Curefoods coincides with the launch of its cross-brand D2C (direct-to-consumer) grocery ordering platform – eat fit. The platform aims to provide direct access to popular brands among Curefoods. It will also play a role in embracing sustainable grocery ordering habits by promoting its grocery subscription options, particularly for its healthy grocery brands that customers can consume multiple times a month.
For years to come, audiences will witness Varun appear in Curefoods’ marketing efforts to promote healthy eating and online ordering through eatfit.in.
In 2021, the actor also invested an undisclosed amount in D2C nutraceutical brand Fast&Up.
Founded in 2020 by Ankit Nagori, Curefoods is home to brands such as EatFit, Sharief Bhai, Frozen Bottle, Aligarh House Biryani, CakeZone and Great Indian Khichdi.
It has over 150 kitchens serving over 10 kitchens in 15 cities in India. The startup claims that it is the second largest cloud kitchen provider in India in terms of footprint with the largest production capacity in the fresh food space.
remedy recently announced the acquisition of Frozen Bottle and the Sbarro franchise rights in South India. Leveraging its multi-brand, multi-kitchen model, Curefoods is on an ambitious path to significantly expand its footprint and offer a variety of food options to meet the growing needs of a diverse consumer base.
In January 2022 it was increased $62 million in financing from companies such as Iron Pillar, Chiratae Ventures, Sixteenth Street Capital, Accel Partners and Binny Bansal.
Sara Ali Khan | The inspired shop
March 2022 Indian actor Sarah Ali Khan joined pop culture brand The Souled Store as an equity partner.
Founded in 2013 by three teenagers Vedang Patel, Rohin Samtaney and Aditya Sharma, The Souled Store is an online marketplace for pop culture merchandise based in Mumbai. Products range from t-shirts, boxers, backpacks and phone cases to socks, pins, badges and more.
The startup claims to be India’s biggest memorabilia destination, with licenses including Disney, Warner Bros, WWE, IPL Teams, EPL Teams and Viacom18.
The startup was bootstrapped for the first five years and received seed funding from RP-SG Ventures in November 2018.
Since then, the company has grown more than fourfold by focusing on data, customer insights and feedback, and putting customer satisfaction above all else.
In August 2021 it was increased Rs 75 crore in Series B funding led by Elevation Capital.
Over the past six months, the brand has leveraged the reach of OTT stars Aisha Ahmed, Mithila Palkar, Barkha Singh and Ahsaas Channa to highlight various womenswear categories. This has resulted in better visibility among OTT customers and is also the brand’s big step towards influencer marketing. It has also worked with over 100 beauty, fashion and travel influencers to expand its womenswear offering on social media.
Going forward, The Souled Store will open its first-ever retail and experience space in Bengaluru covering 5,000 square feet.
Suniel Shetty|Aquatein
In February 2022 Bollywood actor Suniel Shetty invested an undisclosed amount in a fitness startup aquatein. He also became Aquatein’s brand ambassador.
Started in 2019 by Ananta Prabhala and Mitisha Mehtabased in Mumbai aquatein is a keto-friendly, gluten-free, lactose-free, and 100 percent vegetarian beverage that’s essentially water with added protein.
In 2021, the actor showed interest in the NFT space and joined an NFT marketplace on Polygon network Colexion. He joined Colexion as an investor and advisor.
The food and beverage startup aims to create evolutionary products that make everyday nutrition easy, efficient and tasty.
Its products are available online as well as at Amazon, HealthXP, Netmeds and a rapidly growing list of retail outlets across India.
According to the startup, the startup was carefully formulated and tested in a European laboratory led by a team of food technologists.
Starting at Rs 2,400 per month, the startup offers a monthly protein supply, delivered to your door on a weekly basis.
Tiger Shroff | Freedom
In January 2022, Tiger Schroffknown for his action films, has invested an undisclosed amount in English-learning startup Freadom.
In early 2016, Tiger Shroff launched his clothing line To sneak which sells clothing on its website and online marketplace Amazon.
Founded in 2016 by Cavian Gadia and Nikhil SarafGurugram based freedom equips children to learn to read in English via its state-of-the-art recommendation engine in any country where English is an emerging second language; Integrated collaboration with Stanford University to advance English language learning.
Freadom is an initiative of Stones2milestones Edu Services Pvt Ltd, established in 2008.
The startup offers an app for Android and iOS users to start their learning journey.
It is aimed at children in the age group of three to 12 and has content such as stories, quizzes, live classes, storytelling, news, activities and language games. The app continually assesses the child’s level as they use the app and guides them towards improvements, all of which can be tracked.
Since its inception, Fredom has been a total 6 million dollarsof which 5 million dollars arrived after the pandemic. Its lead investors are Unreasonable Capital and Capital A, through various rounds and stages.
The startup’s goal is to use the funds for product development and sales and to further strengthen the startup’s vertical presence.
Edited by Affirunisa Kankudti
Comments are closed.