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The third-largest startup ecosystem in the world is thought to be in India. By the end of 2021, there will be more than 50 unicorns in the nation, and by the end of 2025, there will be more than 100. Only the high net-worth individuals, businessmen, angel investors, and venture capitalists who have been investing in promising firms have been able to support this rise.
According to 2018 Time Magazine, Deepika Padukone is one of the highest-paid Indian actors and one of the 100 most important persons in the world. She is the child of renowned Indian badminton player Prakash Padukone. She is also the creator of the Live Love Laugh Foundation, which raises awareness of mental health, and the chairperson of the Mumbai Academy of the Moving Image.
Deepika Padukone is now involved in the strategic decisions for the company in addition to being an investor. The actress invests through her family business, KA Enterprises, where she serves as co-director alongside her father Prakash Padukone. The actress has invested in numerous firms through KA Enterprises, including Blu Smart, an electric taxi startup, FrontRow, a hobby-based EdTech startup, Epigamia, an FMCG brand of yoghurt products, and even Bellatrix Aerospace, an Indian space technology startup.
Bellatrix Aerospace
A start-up created by the Indian Institute of Science (IIS), Bellatrix Aerospace, revealed in 2019 that it has acquired funds totalling 21 Crore in a pre-series A round. One of the project’s principal investors was Deepika Padukone. Read the full article here. The Space tech business has so far raised approximately $3 million in a Pre-Series A round from investors including Deepika Padukone through KA Enterprise, IDFC Parampara, Karsemven Fund, StartupXseed, and Survam Partners.
Blu Smart
Founded in October 2018 by Puneet Singh Jaggi, Anmol Singh Jaggi, and Punit K Goyal, Blu Smart is a startup electric taxi company. In just three months since its introduction, the business claims to have more than 20,000 users in the Delhi NCR and has expanded its ridesharing fleet to more than 200 electric cars. The company became the largest all-electric B2C ridesharing company in India and one of the top three in Asia by 2019 after scaling to over 500 vehicles in Delhi and Mumbai.
FrontRow
We now know that Padukone and her sidekick Kanchan enjoy investing in cutting-edge enterprises. And with the recent explosion in Edtech, Padukone’s company saw this as a natural opportunity. A learning portal called FrontRow offers courses taught by famous people in artistic disciplines like comedy, cricket, and music. In a $3.2 million fundraising round that also included other investors, Padukone took part.
Epigamia
Deepika Padukone reportedly invested in Drum Foods International Pvt. Ltd., the company behind the flavoured yoghurt brand Epigamia, as well, according to LiveMint. She also became a brand endorser as a result of this strategic alliance.
The company has already produced more than 21 unique goods, and in the upcoming years, it aims to expand across India and open 50,000 stores. The FMCG market is currently worth more than $1.2 billion, and more than 6% of all online orders for FMCG products come from metro areas.
According to estimates, India’s FMCG business would be worth over $104 billion by 2020 and will be expanding at a 28% annual pace. Deepika Padukone made the choice to invest in the business in May 2019.