After social commerce, actor turned investor Athiya Shetty eyes health and beauty space

Bollywood actor Athiya Shetty who recently invested in Stage3, a social marketplace for fashion is now looking at other business categories.

After making her debut as an investor in the social commerce space, Shetty daughter of Bollywood star Suniel Shetty is looking at expansion in more sectors.

"I would like to do something in health especially due to the times we are living in today. In addition, I am interested in makeup or beauty line that's vegan, free of animal cruelty," Athiya Shetty told Moneycontrol.

She added that she is having conversations with companies but nothing is finalized yet.

The actress also said that the startup space is exciting and that she has learned a lot from her father who has invested in startups. "Seeing him passionate about startups makes the space interesting for me," she said.

Making her first investment in startup Stage3, Shetty said that she wanted to explore the space of fashion more. "I have always expressed myself through fashion and art and wanted to explore this space more as I started to earn. I felt this as an organic and natural transition.

"As an actor and I love fashion and thought what better way than to invest in a company like Stage3 which is a creator consumer platform where people are creating content on fashion." Shetty however, did not disclose the amount she has invested in the company.

The Delhi-based company last month raised Rs 20 crore from investors including 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 Pe).

The startup which lets influencers or content creators sell products on the platform has so far onboarded 3,000 brands and has 1,000 creators creating content on the platform. The company said that it realized the potential of the creator economy due to the pandemic which led to significant growth in content creation by creators.

Even Athiya Shetty said that the lockdown has led to a huge growth in the social commerce space. "There are so many new clothing brands that I discovered during the lockdown. I got in touch with smaller brands from tier II, and III cities from where I also bought clothes. I discovered so many brands by just being on Instagram. Even Stage3 puts smaller and different brands under one roof."

Social commerce which involves social media and online media that supports social interaction, and user contributions to assist online buying and selling is expected to reach USD 70 billion by 2030, estimates a Bain & Company report.

According to a report by Accenture, Why Shopping’s Set for a Social Revolution, India’s social commerce market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 59 percent from 2021 to 2025. The report added that 79 percent of those surveyed in India had confirmed using social commerce to make at least one purchase in the past year.

When it comes to categories, fashion is the most popular in the social commerce space followed by lifestyle, beauty, health and fitness, and electronic accessories.

Social commerce which is seeing strong traction from smaller markets is expected to capture 5 percent of the Indian e-commerce market.