Raj Kundra

Raj Kundra was born in London, England to Indian expats. Kundra's parents were Punjabi Hindus from Ludhiana. Kundra grew up in a middle-class family. His father, Bal Krishan Kundra worked as a bus conductor in London before running a small business. His mother, Usha Rani Kundra worked as a shop assistant.

At the age of 18, Kundra moved to Dubai and later Nepal, where he started a business selling pashmina shawls to fashion retailers in Britain and made his first couple of millions. In 2007, he moved to Dubai and set up Essential General Trading LLC, a company dealing in precious metals, construction, mining and renewable energy projects. He was also at that time involved in the financing and production of Bollywood films.

He has also been involved in financing and distributing pornographic films, for which he was arrested in 2021.

His businesses included Satyug Gold, Super Fight League, and more recently, Bastian Hospitality - a restaurant chain in Mumbai.

In 2015, Kundra was among the promoters of online and television broadcast platform Best Deal TV, an Indian television home shopping channel capitalising on celebrity endorsements. His co-promoter was Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar.

Under the Indian government's Startup India initiative, Kundra is set to launch India's first live streaming social media app, Jaldi Live Stream App which will allow professional as well as amateur streamers to live stream their content. In June 2025, he participated as contestant in the Prime Video's The Traitors. He was eliminated on Day 2 and placed 19th.

Kundra has been married twice, first to Kavita Kundra, with whom he has a daughter. The couple later divorced. On 22 November 2009, Kundra married Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty. Kundra and Shetty have a son, born in 2012, and a daughter, born through surrogacy in 2020.

Kundra is involved with his wife's charitable organisation, the Shilpa Shetty Foundation.

He published a crime thriller, How Not to Make Money, in 2013.

Kundra was arrested in July 2021 on charges of producing pornographic content. He was booked under the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Indecent Representation of Women (Prevention) Act. He was granted bail in September 2021 by a metropolitan magistrate's court. On 3 November 2023, a film on the controversy titled UT 69 was released. Kundra himself played the lead role and presented experiences of his days in prison.

The Enforcement Directorate attached his properties worth 97 crores in Bitcoin investment fraud case which was alleged to be a ponzi scheme.

In August 2025, Mumbai police have filed a case against Shilpa Shetty and her husband Raj Kundra for reportedly stealing ₹60.4 crore from a businessman in a loan-cum-investment deal in their old company (now defunct), Best Deal TV Private Limited.