Alia Bhatt isn’t just picking up meaty roles on-screen; she has extended that skill and passion to her business-woman avatar as well. The actor, who has been an investor in different stage startups and businesses for almost five years now, says her strategy is simple: She needs a buy-in to the stories and people who are going to tell them. The numbers would follow.

“I invest in people, I am a storyteller, I feel if your story is good and told the right way the consumer, or the audience will buy. I invest in a story, and if the story is right the numbers will follow,” Bhatta said in an interview to FE. So she doesn’t put her money into a business that she doesn’t fully understand.

Bhatt who admits that she is not a “business student” and “not an expert in finance”, launched her own fashion label called Ed-a-Mamma for kids aged 4 to 14 years at the peak of the pandemic in October 2020. She says she learns the rules of the business game by “observing people”.

In terms of revenue, the sustainable kids wear brand, as it projects itself, has registered a 300% top-line growth in FY22 over FY21. The range of kids wear has grown from 160 options at the time of launch to 1,800 options in the year 2022, seeing a multi-fold increase. Ed-a-Mamma touched `1-crore top line in the first month of its launch despite being exclusively available only on FirstCry. 

Starting off as a purely online brand, it has clocked some good sales numbers on other platforms as well. The sales of Ed-a-Mamma have increased 10x over the past three months on a platform like Ajio. The brand is also going offline now, and will be available across 40 Lifestyle and Shoppers Stop outlets by the end of next month. The company is now launching Ed-a-Mamma maternity wear on October 14. The maternity wear market is pegged at `2,000 crore.

Apart from Ed-a-Mamma, which is her own venture, Bhatt is currently invested in a start-up called phool.co, which is into recycling floral waste that goes into waterbodies, the beauty-tech platform Nykaa and a personal styling platform called Style Cracker.  Defining her investment philosophy, Bhatt says that while understanding the health of the business is required, she “needs to understand the company philosophy and ensure it aligns with my vision”. 

And no short-term way of looking into things: “When I invest in a business, I am not looking for quick short term results,” she said.

Bhatt, who has done financial investments and not restricted herself into putting only sweat equity said, that while there is a return expectation like any business, she understands that there will be “risks” at whatever stage the investment is made. “Any business, whether it is a filmmaking business, or investing in a brand or a start-up, or a tech idea, there is a risk involved. Even when you come in as an early stage investor, and genuinely investing in an idea, there is a risk. When you come as a late stage investor in a company where everything is put together, numbers are in place and business is doing really well, there is risk there as well, because you never know. That’s just the nature of a business or market which is unpredictable,” Bhatt said.

It is the same belief that seems to be guiding her current investment strategies as well, when start-ups are talking about funding winter and valuations are moving south. “One of the things I believe is that whether it is your investments, or your belief, or your system, or your brand, or your company, it needs to stand the test of time,” Bhatt said highlighting that the dips being seen across industries and businesses is “just levelling down post pandemic and lockdown”, and it will take sometime for the system to recover from this.

Bhatt said that while she is not worried as an investor at present, her way of dealing with the slowdown in the start-up space, if it so starts concerning her, would be to stop investing.