Just one more word of caution: it may as well be that the professor has been scammed.
There are many schemes when scammers make victims believe that they have a "profitable" business, and make victims pull others (relatives, friends, random acquaintances) into investing into this "business". And obviously there would be no "business" in fact.
The prof might be deep into such a scam, and scammers (indirectly) telling them that another $80000 will save all their investments and finally generate a huge profit. Which in fact will never happen.
Whenever I hear that somebody asks somebody else to invest into their business, and this request comes in an awkward or inappropriate context, I always think that this may be a scam.