In one of her newest roles, actress Priyanka Chopra toured the San Francisco home of her new portfolio company, a coding education company called Holberton School. “You just hang out and you're learning. It's amazing,” Chopra said. The actress has reportedly been hanging out a lot in technology circles lately. The campus of her investment resembles a WeWork, 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.
The actress' investment in Holberton is part of an $8.2 million round of funding for the school that closed in April. She will join the company's board of advisers and will emphasise support for Holberton's mission to educate people from underprivileged backgrounds. Her second investment is in dating and social media app called Bumble, founded by Whitney Wolfe Herd. Chopra plans to help promote Bumble's launch in India in the coming months.
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. Most recently, actor and entrepreneur Ashton Kutcher tweeted a report on Chopra's investment, writing, “Invest in the future you want to see”. To which, Priyanka replied: "You clearly inspired us Ashton Kutcher."
Priyanka stressed on her support for Holberton's mission to educate people from underprivileged backgrounds. “I don't want to just be one of those people who's like, 'Yeah, I want to be on the tech bandwagon- how are they making so much money. It's not about that,” she said.
