Film Actor Salman Khan has picked up a minority stake in the online travel portal Yatra Online Pvt. Ltd, in what appears to be an endorsement deal, according to a report by Livemint. While the report didn't reveal the financial details of the deal or the amount of stake received by the actor, a similar The Economic Times report quotes a company official stating that the actor has received less than 5% stake in Yatra. Now these type of 'Endorsements in return for a stake' deals are not uncommon. Typically online ventures bring aboard celebrities as a part of their promotional strategy to create buzz, and add a glamour quotient. For instance, Yatra has announced that it intends to soon launch a marketing campaign featuring Salman Khan in order to leverage his mass appeal to promote its new product offerings and target customers in smaller towns. In December 2011, Babyoye.com, the baby products focused e-commerce venture, had issued stake to the film actress Karishma Kapoor, although the company made all efforts to clarify that the deal wasn't just an endorsement. Before that, Shilpa Shetty had invested in a real estate group buying site GroupHomeBuyers.com, Zaheer Khan invested in a fashion brand ‘Sher Singh’, Yuvraj Singh invested in the e-commerce venture Exclusively.in, Ajay Devgan & Sanjay Dutt launched an online ticketing venture Ticketplease.com and Neha Dhupia had launched an e-commerce portal HerStyle.in featuring her own line of lingerie and shoes. Actor, Amitabh Bachchan also owns shares in JustDial. Financials As per filings made with India’s Registrar of Companies by Yatra Online Private Limited, it’s income for the financial year ending 31st March 2011 was…
