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Gone are the days when one used to keep all their eggs in the same basket. These days people look for multiple options to save and grow their hard earned money and celebrities are no exception to this rule. And while it isn’t rare for famous entertainers to get involved with startups in some capacity, only a handful have really made noteworthy contributions–whether in the form of a large one-time investment or through a series of multiple strategic deals. We have enlisted for you 10 well known celebrity backed startups in India.
Master blaster -Sachin Tendulkar has been a serial entrepreneur for a long time now. He has invested in travel portal Musafir, has bought teams in tennis and football leagues, but this March, he made his first ever investment in a tech startup. Smartron, a Hyderabad-based tech company that manufactures smart devices. , has roped in the master blaster as a strategic investor and a brand ambassador.
Big-B or the king of bollywood, Amitabh Bachchan has had an experience of startup investing with JustDial. In 2015, the ever young actor also decided to invest $250,000 in Singapore-based startup called Ziddu which specializes in cloud services. . The startup, founded by Venkata Srinivas Meenavalli and run by Meridian Tech, is a cloud service provider. It also offers free file hosting for documents, pictures, video, and audio.
The evergreen and ever charismatic Shilpa Shetty, along with her husband Raj Kundra entered the real-estate business with this classified website, that helps customers find the best deals on residential listings. Owned by Groupco Infracom, the site also provides volume discount, and has helped over 200 families find properties at a discounted rate. This company helps families find residential properties at a discounted rate.
The magnificient duo of Shekhar Kapur & A.R. Rahman joined hands in 2012 to launch a social media platform called Qyuki. The platform showcases new media content and aims to engage Indian youth through that. It is built on Cisco’s cloud infrastructure and has received an early investment from the networking giant as well.
The Bhai of bollywood, Salmaan Khan owns a popular popular business house Being Human, not many know that the actor also has a 5% stake in travel portal, Yatra.com. Backed by American venture capitalists Norwest Venture Partners and Intel Capital, Yatra roped in Salman for an ad-for-equity deal, which means he will also be a brand ambassador for the company.
The Dhak Dhak girl started out as an investor with Vishal Gondal’s wearable technology startup GOQii. The California-based startup designs wearable fitness bands and also provides personalized fitness training. Her husband, Dr. Sriram Nene, also serves as the Chief Medical Officer of the company.
Owned by Nest Childcare Services Pvt. Ltd, BabyOye, an e-commerce store for baby products, lists Karisma Kapoor as the largest individual stakeholder at 26%. The other partners include Accel Partners and Tiger Global. Karisma at the time of the announcement had mentioned,
'œI want to share this with every young mother. I really believe in Babyoye's vision of giving babies the right start in life,'
The singing sensation and everyone’s favourite Shaan co-founded Happydemic, a startup that brings artists and listeners together. . Happydemic, founded by Shaan’s wife Radhika Mukherjee, is an online startup that aims to bring performers and customers together on a single platform. Shaan, along with Amar Pandit, who started the wealth management company, My Financial Advisor, is on the founding team.
The founder of UTV Media group also jumped on the startup bandwagon with UpGrad. The startup works to educate young entrepreneurs on how to go about building their product company. It teaches specific aspects of different entrepreneurial concepts by having industry experts talk to them about their challenges, and application of these concepts for real-life business needs.
Ticketplease is a one-stop ticketing portal for movies, concerts, plays, and sporting events. Ajay Devgn launched the venture in 2011 along with founder and CEO Jimmy Mistry. At the time of the launch, Ajay said that he would start writing blogs to remain in touch with his fans on the internet. However, four blog posts later, the blog was shut down.
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