Here’s why Hollywood’s biggest names are building ownership in the Fintech companies of the future

As entertainers grow followings and demand higher fees, they begin to look for ways to creatively channel their money in a way that gives them more opportunities to maintain and grow their wealth. In an effort to diversify their income generation, some of Hollywood’s biggest names are venturing into the business world as investors, business owners or entrepreneurs. They are also not picky about the kind of businesses they go into.

Jessica Alba started the Honest Company in 2011 to produce “clean” baby products, and the company has since expanded its product catalog. Kanye West, who owns the Yeezy clothing and sneaker brand, was the highest-paid hip-hop artist in 2019, with $150 million, most of which came from Yeezy. Jared Leto and Snoop Dogg are both invested in Reddit. Ashton Kutcher owns a venture capital firm with interests in the likes of UberUBER
, Skype and Airbnb. Mark Wahlberg owns a restaurant chain called The Wahlburgers.

The list of celebrities growing their financial portfolios outside of entertainment is endless, and it’s only going to grow. As every business and industry becomes more technology dependent, fintech is an area that has received massive attention from investors. This union between financial services and information technology is steadily killing cash transactions as every business increasingly adopts Fintech solutions.

According to Eugene Johnson, founder of Revi, a restaurant-focused Web3.0 fintech solution, “A few decades ago, we were a cash society. There was a time when people didn’t even trust digital payments. Today, the trend has completely turned on its head. Now is not only rare to have a lot of cash, it is irrelevant. Businesses now need to support not only card transactions, but newer forms of digital payment such as apple/google pay, biometric payments and, what we hope to introduce soon, pay with your identity and never have to pull anything out of your pockets again. We’re already seeing these alternative payment methods in our Hollywood movies, it’s only a matter of time before these things become cultural norms.”

Johnson believes that the world of fintech is just getting started and is headed for another bold phase of evolution in payments that is already starting to see massive innovation of blockchain, AR and VR technology, a trend that everyone, including Hollywood’s elite, have noticed and are already taking advantage.

Fintech investments are heating up

There is a growing belief that this new wave of fintech is going to engulf all industries to the point where no business could exist without it. After the growth of fintech in the last two decades, since the emergence of payment solutions such as WorldPay and PayPalPYPL
that certainly seems like a credible claim.

Fintech has developed rapidly, and today no relevant business can be run without utilizing one or the other fintech solution. Fintech has taken many forms; Credit cards, digital payment facilitators like Stripe and Square, money transfer solutions like XE and Wise, online banks like Revolut, P2P lending platforms like SoFi, cryptocurrency and blockchain, and digital assets like NFTs.

In 2019, the total value of fintech investments was $213.8 billion. It took a hit when the pandemic hit, falling to $124.9 billion. In 2021, it returned to $210 billion and is expected to reach $305 billion by 2025.

Johnson believes one of the biggest reasons why fintech appeals to celebrity investors is trust. In his words, “As payment platforms gained the trust that consumers and businesses originally had for cash transactions, they transitioned to digital transactions with the advent of Web2.0.

“This version of the internet made people more comfortable using their real information to create personal profiles online. This brought trust to the profiles online and made it possible to build an e-commerce infrastructure on top of it.”

“Today, these personal profiles are beginning to be extended to the physical environment. As this happens at scale, fintech growth will be explosive and no platform will be able to innovate without a fintech solution. Payments will become the gateway to all innovation. We are still not at the peak of innovation. There are so many more creative solutions left for fintech to create. But even with the innovation we have in today’s world so far, fintech solutions can do more than trade money.”

Revi is a technology solution for restaurants that uses a digital and mobile in-store ordering system to streamline the ordering process, collect analytics and reconnect with users after purchase.

The technology analyzes customer data to deliver a personalized and helpful post-purchase experience and has so far processed over $30 million in transactions. The system is on track to process $30-$40 million this year.

Fintech is here to stay, but Johnson is adamant that only fintech companies that prioritize consumer value will survive. “In today’s fintech space, brands need to build some differentiation to stand out. Fintech solutions need to be seamless, rewarding, personalized and connected for the consumer, not just the business.”

Celebrities are putting more than just their money into fintech

In the not-so-distant past, celebrities were known to focus their investments on clothing, alcohol, restaurants, sneakers and other sectors that followed trends. It was felt that these were easier to understand and promote using their celebrity status, regardless of whether they had expert knowledge or not.

With fintech, however, there is a feeling that more knowledge is needed to market a product with financial solutions. In fact, Justin Bieber, Snoop Dogg, Drake, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Hudson and many other celebrities have just put money into a new fintech company, MoonPay.

A-list celebrities often have a lot of investment capital available, but investing in Fintech is understandably not something they’ve been known to invest in. However, this doesn’t mean there haven’t been significant celebrity investments in Fintech. In fact, by 2015, celebrity investments in technology and fintech had already reached $2 billion. But when it comes to fintech involvement, beyond just cash injection, the picture is less clear.

Consider the judges for Apple TVsThe planet of the apps” We saw Hai tank a kind of spin-off. Apart from seasoned entrepreneur and business commentator, Gary Vaynerchuk, the rest of the judging panel consists of Jessica Alba, Gwyneth Paltrow and Will.i.am, a list made up of those who had made their name in the entertainment field.

On the show, app makers pitched their app ideas to a panel of judges and if their idea was deemed worthy, they would have a chance to be mentored by the judges where they could get funding for their business. The show has allowed us to not only gauge the entrepreneurial spirit of these celebrities, but to watch them mentor quite a few fintech companies as well.

Whatever you think about celebrities taking on direct roles in fintech, it doesn’t change the fact that celebrity investment is here to stay. The lines between Hollywood and Silicon Valley are blurring fast, and it doesn’t look like just another trend.