Aishwarya Rai Bachchan debuts as an angel investor, invests in an air purifier startup

• Bollywood star Aishwarya Rai Bachchan along with her mother Vrinda Rai, has invested ₹5 million in Ambee, according to paper.vc.
• Bengaluru-based Ambee is a startup that monitors air quality.
• The startup had previously raised funding from the likes of former Google India head Rajan Anandan.

Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan has made her debut as an angel investor along with her mother Vrinda. They invested in Ambee, an environmental intelligence startup, according to paper.vc. The filings sourced by paper.vc show that Bachchan invested ₹5 million.

This is not Bachchan’s first investment in clean technology. She has invested in wind power projects in Maharashtra, around ten years back in Dhule and Nandurbar.

Her latest investment in Ambee is an idea which was born out of an Internet of Things hackathon at Amazon Development Center in Bengaluru. The winners Akshay Joshi, Jaideep Singh and Madhusudan Anand founded Datair Technology, whose product is Ambee.

The startup monitors which air quality with data has already installed over 100 sensors in Bengaluru.

Ambee raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Venture Catalysts in December 2018. From the network of investors on the incubation platform Venture Catalysts, former Google India head Rajan Anandan too had invested in the startup.

The country has seen a growth in the number of air purifier startups. Nanoclean is another such startup which promises to turn the air conditioner into an air purifier. The startup born out of IIT Delhi was also awarded National Startup Award by former President Pranab Mukherjee for its ₹10 nasofilters to deal with Delhi’s air pollution.