Bangalore: E-commerce is the trend right now and is seeing a lot of venture capitalists investing in them, but now even celebrities are going crazy over the e-commerce companies. The recent celebrities to join the funding bandwagon are: Bollywood actress Karishma Kapur, who has made an investment in online store for babycare products BabyOye.com, which had raised $2.5 million from Accel Partners and Tiger Global. Hollywood actor Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary have invested in an e-commerce site offering design inspirations, Fab.com, which has raised $41 million in funding.

Cricketer Zaheer Khan had invested in Exclusively.in's new label Sher Singh, which has raised $18.8 million in funding till date. Exclusively.in also saw investments from cricketer Yuvraj Singh. Bollywood actor Salman Khan who is promoting the 'Being Human' brand made an investment in the online watch showroom BeingHumanWatches.com. Actors Ajay Devgan and Sanjay Dutt had invested in ticketplease, which deals in tickets for movies and concerts. Vatsal Seth had invested in celebwears.com, an online portal selling celebrity clothes and customized wardrobes. Actress Shilpa Shetty invested in home-buying site GroupHomeBuyers.com.

The e-commerce sites are not only looking at the monetary gains but also cashing on the fan following of the celebrity investors, which they hope would help to take their companies to newer levels. The celebrities are generally roped in as brand ambassadors benefitting both the celebrity and the company.

2011 has seen over 364 companies raising over $4.8 billion in venture capital funding, an 85 percent increase from the funding raised in 2010. There lies a lot of scope in the e-commerce industry which is attracting investments from VCs and celebrities alike, who want to be a part of the booming industry.