Hello there,
Today, we’re meeting for an exciting look at how celebrities are going from endorsements to ownership and becoming key players in private markets alongside institutional capital.
Celebrities are becoming real investors because they’ve realized that ownership, not endorsements, is what drives long-term wealth. In the past, famous athletes and entertainers would mostly act as “angel investors,” investing their own money in startups early on.
Over time, they gained access, experience, and deal flow, and started to see how much value sits at the ownership level. Instead of taking equity in exchange for promotion, they’re now actively seeking larger stakes, more control, and exposure to entire portfolios rather than single bets.
This is why more celebrities are moving toward private equity-style investing or launching their own funds. Private equity offers something angel investing doesn’t: the ability to shape companies, influence strategy, and build diversified exposure across sectors like consumer, media, and sports. It also fits well with their existing advantages, brand, network, and distribution, which can be applied across multiple portfolio companies.
Who Is Getting Serious About It?
On the private equity side, Kim Kardashian is one of the most visible examples. She co-founded SKKY Partners with a former executive at The Carlyle Group, targeting consumer, media, and luxury companies with both minority and control investments.
In Europe, Rafael Nadal has taken a different route, co-owning Mabel Capital, a firm focused on long-term investments, such as premium real estate.
On the positive side, celebrities can bring real advantages to the companies they invest in, such as increased publicity, better marketing ideas, and access to powerful networks, which can help a business grow faster and attract more investors.
However, there are also concerns that some celebrities may lack sufficient experience, which can lead to poor investment decisions or contribute to market bubbles, in which too much money flows into weak ideas. There are also practical challenges, such as whether celebrities can remain actively involved while managing their main careers, and the risk that their public image or scandals could harm the reputation of the firms they are part of.
However, there is a broader group of celebrities who are getting serious and building their own funds, often starting in venture but increasingly moving toward larger, more institutional strategies.
Serena Williams, who launched Serena Ventures,
Ashton Kutcher, who owns A-Grade Investments and Sound Ventures
Jay-Z, who has opened Marcy Venture Partners, which later merged with Pendulum Holdings
Alex Rodriguez and former Walmart e-commerce chief Mark Lore have started Vision Capital People
Will Smith and Japanese soccer star Keisuke Honda launched Dreamers VC
Stephen Curry is a pro basketball player, but he also runs his investment firm, SC30
Kevin Hart, a comedian, also launched HartBeat Ventures and received investment from J.P. Morgan
A more institutional example is Nico Rosberg, the former Formula 1 World Champion, who has built Rosberg Ventures into a multi-strategy investment platform.
In 2026, the firm closed its $100 million Fund III, bringing total assets under management to over $200 million. Rather than relying solely on personal investments, Rosberg has scaled into a fund-of-funds and direct investment strategy, backing companies across software, AI, and infrastructure.
They all built platforms that invest across dozens of companies and raise capital beyond their own wealth.
It Takes Two to Tango: Why Is Private Equity Leaning Into Celebrities?
Private equity is also leaning into celebrities because they solve one of the hardest problems in building companies today: distribution. Traditional PE playbooks focus on improving operations and optimizing financials after an acquisition. But in consumer, media, and sports businesses, growth is increasingly driven by attention.
Celebrities come with built-in audiences, brand trust, and cultural relevance, all of which can accelerate growth far faster than operational improvements alone. That’s why firms are starting to see them not as marketing tools but as strategic assets embedded directly in the value-creation model.
This has completely changed the way celebrities build wealth, pivoting them away from relying solely on salaries from movies, music, or sports and toward owning businesses that can be sold for huge sums. Instead of just getting paid for their work, celebrities now create or invest in brands, like tequila companies, production studios, or consumer products, and grow them with the goal of eventually selling them to large companies for massive profits.
Here are some of the best examples:
George Clooney’s Tequila Firm Casamigos sells for $1bn
The best example is George Clooney’s Casamigos tequila, which sold for up to $1 billion, earning him more money from that single deal than from his entire acting career. This shows that the real money today often comes from ownership and smart business strategy, not just talent or fame.
Ryan Reynolds Made $450 Million From Aviation Gin and Mint Mobile
Ryan Reynolds acquired a stake in Aviation Gin in 2018, took an active role in marketing and brand positioning, and sold it to Diageo in 2020 for up to $610 million.
He then followed a similar approach with Mint Mobile, where he bought an ownership in 2019, used his personal brand and creative advertising to rapidly grow awareness, and helped position the company for acquisition by T-Mobile in a deal worth about $1.35 billion, earning him roughly $300 million from his stake
Maria Sharapova’s Supergoop! Turns Into $750M Deal
Maria Sharapova is also a strong example of an athlete transitioning from endorsements to equity-driven investing by taking early ownership stakes in brands she believed in. In 2014, she became a co-owner of the sunscreen brand Supergoop!, not just as a spokesperson but as an investor actively involved in growing the business.
Years later, that decision paid off when Blackstone acquired a majority stake in the company at a valuation of around $750 million, turning her early investment into a highly successful exit-style outcome . Beyond Supergoop!, Sharapova has built a diversified portfolio across wellness, tech, and consumer brands, showing a clear shift from earning through sponsorships to creating long-term value through ownership and strategic investments.
The New Structure of Celebrity-Driven Deals
This also changes how deals are structured.
Instead of acquiring companies after they’ve proven traction, private equity firms are partnering with celebrities much earlier, sometimes even co-creating businesses from scratch.
In some cases, the company is designed from day one as a collaboration between talent, operators, and capital. SKIMS is a clear example of this model: co-founded by Kim Kardashian alongside experienced operators and backed early by institutional investors, the business combined product strategy, capital, and distribution from the start, eventually attracting multiple funding rounds and reaching a valuation of around $5 billion
A similar structure can be seen in media and content, where companies like Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap and Brad Pitt’s Plan B are built not as vanity projects but as scalable production businesses with external capital and long-term growth in mind. These companies are set up to generate ongoing enterprise value through a portfolio of projects, rather than one-off paychecks tied to individual roles.
At the same time, this early-stage integration is happening across startups more broadly, especially with athletes. Investors are increasingly bringing in figures like Venus Williams at the board or ownership level early on, embedding their influence into strategy, branding, and distribution from the build stage rather than adding them later as endorsers. The result is a new deal structure in which capital, operations, and celebrity influence are aligned from the beginning, creating companies built to scale and to exit much faster.
From Hollywood to Seoul: A Global Playbook
These trends aren’t limited to Hollywood or Western markets, are happening globally, and South Korea’s entertainment industry is a strong example of how early-stage partnerships between capital and creative talent are evolving.
In 2021, Saehan Ventures acquired a 28% stake in The Black Label, a company founded by producer Teddy Park, long before it reached its current scale. Instead of investing after the business had proven itself, they backed a founder with a clear vision and track record, effectively building the company alongside him from an early stage.
The Black Label itself represents a different kind of entertainment company, one structured more like a scalable studio than a traditional label, with a focus on long-term artist development and global positioning. Its growth, including attracting major artists and launching new groups, reflects how early alignment between capital and creative leadership can accelerate both cultural and financial outcomes.
Similar to how private equity is partnering with celebrities in the US, this model in Korea shows investors moving earlier, backing talent as operators and builders, not just as performers. At the company level, major Korean entertainment groups are also adopting venture-style strategies. Firms like SM Entertainment have launched dedicated investment arms and have been actively investing in the industry, while others like YG have invested in global media platforms, blurring the line between entertainment companies and capital allocators.
At the individual level, artists are also moving toward equity ownership. Members of BLACKPINK, for example, are building portfolios that include real estate, intellectual property, and self-owned management structures, reflecting a shift toward controlling both their brand and underlying assets rather than relying on external agencies.
This trend is now attracting global capital as well. In 2025, Jay-Z’s investment firm partnered with Hanwha Asset Management to launch a $500 million fund focused on Korean entertainment, beauty, and lifestyle companies, signaling that K-culture is no longer just a cultural export but a scalable investment category.
Let’s continue the Conversation at 0100 Europe tonight!
Many of the trends discussed above, early alignment between capital and talent, the change toward ownership, and the growing role of private wealth in shaping private markets, are part of a broader transformation in how capital is deployed.
This week at the 0100 Europe conference in Amsterdam, these ideas will be explored further in a panel on how private wealth is fueling private markets and reshaping access to liquidity.
The discussion brings together perspectives from investors actively operating across these dynamics, including Justinas Milašauskas (Willgrow), Thibaut Busschaert (3MER Partners), Frits Moonen (Momentum Family Office), and Daniel Cavanagh (Saint Leonard Single Family Office). Together, they will explore how evolving allocation strategies, secondary markets, and new liquidity models are redefining investor engagement across Europe.