Meaning & use
invest in someone
Last updated
Meanings
phraseidiom
To give your time, money, or effort to help a person succeed or do well.
Grammar: Followed by a person: invest in your team. For things, use invest in a project or invest in stocks.
Patterns
- invest in someone
- invest time in someone
- invest money in someone
Good managers invest in their staff by paying for training.
Her parents invested in her education and never regretted it.
The company invests in young engineers through a two-year program.
phraseidiombusinessfinance
To put money into a business or project that a particular person owns or runs.
Grammar: Used with a person as the object when the money goes to that person's business: invest in a friend's startup.
Patterns
- invest in someone's business
- invest in someone's company
Several angels invested in his startup before it launched.
Would you invest in a friend's restaurant if he asked you to?
Common combinations
- invest heavily in someone
- The club invested heavily in its youth players.
- invest time and energy in someone
- She invested a lot of time and energy in her new assistant.
- invest in someone's future
- Scholarships are a way to invest in a young person's future.
- invest in someone's education
- They invested in their daughter's education rather than a bigger house.
- be worth investing in someone
- A talented junior is always worth investing in.
Synonyms and how they differ
- support
- Support is wider and can mean simply helping or agreeing; invest in someone suggests a lasting commitment of resources.
- back
- Back is more informal and often means providing money for a plan or candidate.
- mentor
- Mentor focuses on giving advice and guidance, while invest in someone can also mean giving money.
Opposites
Word family
- investment noun
- Money, time, or effort put into something to get a benefit later.
- investor noun
- A person who puts money into a business hoping for profit.
- invest verb
- To put money, time, or effort into something.
Commonly confused: invest in someone or invest with someone? invest in someone or spend on someone?
invest in someone vs invest with someone
Invest with someone means to place your money through that person or firm, not to help them develop.
invest in someone vs spend on someone
Spend on someone means buying things for them; invest in someone suggests you expect them to grow or succeed.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'invest in someone' most naturally?
Choose one answer.
'Invest in someone' means giving time or resources to help a person develop, so the coach and his players fit. The laptop and sandwich sentences use 'invest in' for ordinary purchases, and the train-station sentence makes no sense at all.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “invest in someone”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.