Priyanka Chopra: Beauty queen, filmstar and now a tech investor too

Holberton School uses projects and group learning instead of more traditional courses, to teach software development.

Business Standard : In one of her first acts as a start-up investor, the actor Priyanka Chopra recently toured the San Francisco home of her new portfolio company, a coding education company called Holberton School.

The campus resembles a WeWork more than a school, with open-plan rows of desks, decorative neon lights and meeting rooms named after famous people. The school uses projects and group learning instead of more traditional courses, to teach software development.

“You just hang out and you’re learning,” Ms. Chopra said. “It’s amazing.”

Ms. Chopra, 36, has been doing a lot of hanging out and learning in technology circles lately. In between presenting at the Emmys, sitting in the front row at New York Fashion Week, celebrating the birthday of her fiancé, Nick Jonas, in Texas, and darting to her native India to act in a movie, she has squeezed in meetings with start-up founders and lined up future investments.

“Geeks are taking over the world,” Ms. Chopra said. “If they haven’t already,” she quickly added.

There’s no shortage of celebrities investing in tech start-ups. So far, deals from male actors, athletes and musical artists have garnered much more attention than those from famous women. Ashton Kutcher is a regular at tech conferences; Carmelo Anthony and Nas have their own funds; Leonardo DiCaprio has been an adviser to at least three venture firms.

Tyra Banks, Beyoncé and Demi Lovato have participated in start-up deals. But few women have built robust portfolios.

Ms. Chopra said she did not yet know how many deals she would do or how much money she would invest, but she does plan on building a portfolio.

On Wednesday she announced her second investment, in Bumble, a dating and social media app founded by Whitney Wolfe Herd, one of the most prominent start-up founders in tech. Ms. Chopra plans to help promote Bumble’s launch in India in the coming months.

Ms. Chopra was introduced to tech investing by her manager, Anjula Acharia, a founder and angel investor who spent time as an entrepreneur-in-residence and partner at Trinity Ventures, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm. Ms. Acharia has worked with Ms. Chopra since 2010... Read More