For years, the celebrity–startup deal followed a simple script. A brand paid a famous person to use the product, post about it and put a face to the campaign. That still happens all the time. But a growing number of celebrities now want equity in the company itself rather than a one-off fee.
That shift has made actors, athletes and entertainers into a real category of startup backers. What gets them onto a cap table is everything that comes with the name: distribution, cultural pull, a direct line to customers and industries, and an audience most funds struggle to reach on their own. The most ambitious of them have gone further and started building, launching funds, hiring partners and writing their own investment thesis.
Here’s how some of the most recognizable names actually invest.
Actors
Eva Longoria:
Eva Longoria has been investing well beyond Hollywood for years, across consumer brands and technology. In 2026 she joined the group backing ElevenLabs, the AI voice company that passed $500 million (about €460 million) in annual recurring revenue at a valuation above $11 billion (about €10 billion). Her value to a company like that comes from her audience and her connections inside entertainment, the exact industry ElevenLabs is reshaping as its technology changes how voices and content get made. Her check is small next to the institutional investors on the round, and she still earns a place on the cap table because of everything else she carries with her. She also builds businesses of her own, among them the female-founded Casa Del Sol Tequila brand she co-founded in 2021.
Investor Type: Angel (individual)
Investment Focus: Consumer, beauty, technology
Notable Portfolio Investments: ElevenLabs, Casa Del Sol Tequila (co-founder)
Matthew McConaughey: Early believer
Matthew McConaughey was already in ElevenLabs before the 2026 round turned its investor list into a red carpet. His portfolio spans consumer and tech, and it includes Workrise (formerly RigUp), the Austin workforce platform for the energy and infrastructure industries. That early ElevenLabs position still stands out, because he backed the company well before it became one of the most-talked-about names in AI. Getting in that early can matter as much for a celebrity investor as the name recognition does.
Investor Type: Angel (individual)
Investment Focus: Consumer, technology
Notable Portfolio Investments: ElevenLabs, Workrise (formerly RigUp)
Jamie Foxx:
Jamie Foxx joined the 2026 wave of investors in ElevenLabs, the AI voice company. Away from tech, he has also moved into consumer brands, buying a majority stake in BSB–Brown Sugar Bourbon in 2021. Beyond those, his startup portfolio stays thin on the public record, with most of his business activity in entertainment and consumer ventures rather than tech.
Investor Type: Angel (individual)
Investment Focus: AI, entertainment
Notable Portfolio Investments: ElevenLabs, BSB–Brown Sugar Bourbon (majority owner)
Kevin Hart: Comedy money, run like a fund
Kevin Hart has turned comedy money into a structured venture operation. He launched HartBeat Ventures in 2021 with a clear mission — backing minority and underrepresented founders, and drew an early investment from J.P. Morgan. The firm has already invested in at least 14 companies, including Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty and the art-investing marketplace Masterworks, and its first fund had raised at least $28 million (about €25.8 million) by early 2024. It runs with the structure and thesis of a real fund, well beyond ad-hoc angel checks.
VC Founded In: HartBeat Ventures (2021)
Investment Focus: Minority and underrepresented founders; consumer, culture, tech
Notable Portfolio Investments: Savage X Fenty, Masterworks
Gwyneth Paltrow: From newsletter to tech
Gwyneth Paltrow turned a newsletter into Goop, a wellness, beauty and media brand that outlasted most of its early skeptics, and she was an early Uber investor along the way. She has since moved into technology through Kinship Ventures, the firm she co-founded in 2021 with Moj Mahdara, which has backed AI companies including, reportedly, OpenAI.
VC Founded In: Kinship Ventures (2021)
Investment Focus: Consumer, AI, technology
Notable Portfolio Investments: OpenAI (reported), Uber (early)
Athletes
Mario Götze: The World Cup winner turned serious angel
Mario Götze scored the goal that won Germany the 2014 World Cup, and he has spent the years since building a second career as one of Europe’s more serious footballer-investors. Through his vehicle Companion M he has backed more than 70 companies, usually writing €25,000–€50,000 (about $29,000–$58,000) checks at pre-seed and seed. Two of them — the fintech Flatpay and the AI company Parloa — turned into unicorns in 2025. He also invests as an LP in venture funds across Europe and the US.
VC Founded In: Companion M (personal investment vehicle)
Investment Focus: B2B SaaS, software infrastructure, cybersecurity, health & biotech
Notable Portfolio Investments: Flatpay, Parloa, Sanity Group, Qualifyze
David Beckham: Turning reach into equity
David Beckham has built a business career on one of the most recognizable personal brands in the world. His investments include the esports company Guild Esports and a range of consumer businesses. His main asset is reach: few backers can offer a startup an audience that runs from football fans to shoppers across the globe.
Investor Type: Angel / DB Ventures
Investment Focus: Consumer, esports
Notable Portfolio Investments: Guild Esports
Dimitar Berbatov: When the investor knows the industry
Dimitar Berbatov is one of those celebrity investors whose experience lines up directly with the company he backs. In 2025 the former Manchester United and Bulgarian national-team striker put money into Footium, a UK football-management startup, as part of a roughly $600,000 strategic angel round (about €550,000). Any investor could write that check. What Berbatov adds on top is a career spent inside professional football, with all the knowledge of the people and culture around it, which for a football startup can be worth as much as the money.
Investor Type: Angel (individual)
Investment Focus: Sports tech
Notable Portfolio Investments: Footium
Gerard Piqué: The athlete as an operator
Gerard Piqué stopped being an occasional startup dabbler some time ago. The former Barcelona defender founded Kosmos, an investment and media group with interests across sport, entertainment and technology, and took it deep into tennis, including a deal to overhaul the Davis Cup that has since ended. His second career now looks a lot more like a full-time businessman’s than a footballer’s side project.
VC Founded In: Kosmos (2017)
Investment Focus: Sport, media, technology
Notable Portfolio Investments: Kosmos Tennis / Davis Cup (partnership ended), sports & media ventures
Musicians
Beyoncé: Equity instead of a fee
Beyoncé made one of the smartest celebrity moves in tech almost by accident. In 2015 she took Uber stock instead of a cash fee for a performance. She has since put money into a run of consumer and beverage startups, including Lemon Perfect, WTRMLN WTR and the music-merch app Sidestep.
Investor Type: Angel (individual)
Investment Focus: Consumer, beverage, technology
Notable Portfolio Investments: Uber (early), Lemon Perfect, WTRMLN WTR, Sidestep
Katy Perry: One of the busiest celebrity angels
Katy Perry has become an active angel investor, with a portfolio that leans heavily into food tech, consumer goods and, more recently, AI. Her bets include Impossible Foods, the food-preservation company Apeel Sciences and the virtual-reality chain Sandbox VR, and she got in early on Core Hydration before Keurig Dr Pepper bought it for $525 million (about €480 million) in 2018.
Investor Type: Angel (individual)
Investment Focus: Food tech, consumer goods, health, AI
Notable Portfolio Investments: Impossible Foods, Apeel Sciences, Sandbox VR, Core Hydration (exit)
will.i.am: The musician who never stopped investing in tech
will.i.am has been putting money into technology for about as long as he has been making records. He was an early investor in Beats Electronics, and has since backed a string of startups across music tech, fintech and consumer hardware. Recently, he joined a $4.5 million seed funding round for imagi (Imagilabs), a Swedish-Hungarian edtech startup.
Investor Type: Angel / founding shareholder
Investment Focus: Music tech, fintech, consumer hardware, AI
Notable Portfolio Investments: Beats Electronics (founding shareholder), Atom Bank, Music Messenger, Honest Dollar, imagi
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