Celebrities Who Made Successful Investments In Technology
Emily Bell There are quite a few celebrities who like to make investments in technology. It is interesting to see the kind of investments that they make. Some like to support their own ideas and inventions. Other celebrities who make technology investments do so because of their interest in social causes.
Innovation in technology continues at a rapid pace. Even so, FastCompany says that 75 percent of startups fail. Entrepreneur reports that successful tech companies have some advantage. Celebrities who use their fame along with their money for investment can give these technology companies the extra edge they need to succeed.
A Plus notes that the technology investments made by celebrities involve creating interesting applications. Jesse Williams, one of the stars of Grey’s Anatomy, is an active spokesperson for people of color. He co-founded the creation of Ebroji. Ebroji promotes gif images that are used as symbols on social media to convey ideas in support of contemporary culture. Ebroji encourages users to upload still images and animated gifs to the system to be shared with others on social media.
Williams also created the game application called BLeBRiTY. This game app allows users to play a trivia game based on black culture that includes the categories of 80s Babies, The 90s, Actin’ Like a Fool, Church, Famous Phrases, LGBT, and Off the Charts.
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Another celebrity tech investor that is a game-app creator is the reality TV star, Kim Kardashian. She has a popular mobile game called Kim Kardashian Hollywood. In this game, users create their own celebrity story by choosing their look and their celebrity life including a dream home. Kim Kardashian also created ShoeDazzle, which is an online shoe-sales subscription website. Users pay a monthly fee that is then used as a credit for shoe purchases.
Robert Downey Jr. stars as the billionaire technology entrepreneur, Tony Stark, in the Iron Man movies. In real life, Downey invested in Loot Crate, which is a subscription service for gamers. He also invested in MasterClass, which has experts who offer online educational courses. Along with Jay-Z and Will Smith, Downey invested in an insurance startup called Ethos.
Ashton Kutcher is very tech savvy. He made some very clever investments in Skype, Box, and Airbnb.
Jay-Z has a net worth close to one billion dollars not only from his career as a music producer and his marriage to Beyoncé but also from his wise investments. He invested in Uber, JetSmarter, and has a streaming service of his own called Tidal. He is very good at exploiting the values of branding. He launched his own venture capital firm called Arrive that specializes in doing this branding work for startups.
Some stars make tech investments to help others. The superstar of tennis Venus Williams, along with Mellody Hobson, invested in Ellevest. This company is a tech startup founded by Sallie Krawcheck. Its mission is to empower women to make plans, invest wisely, and then achieve their financial goals.
Crunchbase reports that Tyra Banks started a venture fund for fashion and beauty-product startups, mostly run by women, called Fierce Capital.
It is fun and interesting to follow celebrity careers that also includes keeping an eye on their tech investment choices. When popularity is the key to success, these choices can really pay off.
