Baby products focused e-commerce venture Babyoye.com has announced that film actress Karishma Kapoor has invested an undisclosed amount in the company following which she is the largest individual shareholder in the company. This follows the company's initial funding round of $2.5 million from Accel Partners and Tiger Global in April 2011. Launched in 2010, Babyoye.com is one of the few babycare products focused e-commerce ventures in India with other players being Hushbabies.com, Firstcry.com and Jasper's Babybox.in. The company claims to offer over 13,000 Indian and imported baby products across categories, like diapers, bath and skincare, health and safety products and over 120 brands like Johnson & Johnson, Hauck, Graco, Medela, Avent, Chicco, Fisherprice, farlin, Pampers, and Huggies to more than 5000 cities in India. Endorsement deal?: Although the statement from the company makes all efforts to clarify that the deal is not just an endorsement, celebrities coming on board online ventures in India has mostly been a part of their promotional strategy to create buzz, and to add a glamour quotient. 'Endorsements in return for a stake' deals are not uncommon. Earlier this year, Shilpa Shetty 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 is all set to launch an e-commerce portal featuring her own line of lingerie and shoes. Also, Amitabh Bachchan owns shares in JustDial.
