The AI investment boom has reached Hollywood. Recently, Ashton Kutcher, the actor who played Steve Jobs, has invested in OpenAI, Stability AI and Anthroic, three of the most popular companies in the AI field, attracting attention.

In China, there have been few reports of celebrities investing directly in similar targets. In the past 10 years, Chinese celebrities have invested in a wave of hotspots ranging from traditional restaurants, film and television, and trendy clothing to the Internet, meta-universe, and NFT. Some investment institutions investors told "true story research room", the domestic AI field is now mostly large platform investment, high capital and knowledge threshold demand, and the project commercialization landing, as well as a long exit year, requiring investors to have a long-term running awareness. Short-term wind is not suitable for this field of investment. The star is advisable or first through the film and television winter, the work well.

#01 Hollywood stars invest in AI

In late May, the venture capital fund Sound Ventures, whose founders are Kutcher and his friend Oseary, appeared in OpenAI's latest round of financing in the second quarter of this year.

Kutcher, who played Apple founder Steve Jobs in the movie "Steve Jobs" (released in October 2015), was once said to be the highest paid actor in Hollywood, while Oseary previously worked as the manager of American pop star Madonna and veteran rock band U2.

Kutcher raised a $243 million investment fund in just five weeks and invested the money in artificial intelligence startups, according to a Bloomberg TV interview.

He said that there has been a group of limited partners (LPs) with whom they have maintained a relationship.

Interestingly, of the three companies Kutcher has invested in, two are clearly competing - OpenAI and Anthroic, an AI startup founded by a former OpenAI executive who, on March 15, 2023, released a ChatGPT-like product Claude.

OpenAI and Anthropic are backed by Microsoft and Google, respectively, two trillion-dollar giants that are escalating the battle around AI. In contrast, Stability AI is an open source company and seems to be more independent.

Talking about the reasons for intensive investment in the AI field, Kutcher believes that the release of GPT is an absolute breakthrough.

Some voices believe that Kutcher and his Sound Ventures are definitely betting on the AI space, but that it is using a diversification strategy to put its eggs in different baskets and see which company can finally run out.

To the outside world, Kutcher is an actor, but those who know him well know that "sometimes he knows so much about technology that he surprises people in show business."

Joshua Michael Stern, the director of "Steve Jobs," has said that Kutcher is very knowledgeable about the history of Apple. In addition, Kutcher was the first Twitter user to surpass 1 million followers.

In fact, as co-founder and partner of venture fund Sound Ventures, Kutcher manages more than $1 billion in capital. For the past seven years, Kutcher has been investing extensively in the Internet and technology sectors.

Kutcher has invested in Skype, Spotify, Uber and Airbnb, earning a total of $250 million over the years, all as an angel financier as a shareholder before the software was even incubated.

Skype, an instant messaging application that was eventually acquired by Microsoft for $8.5 billion; Spotify, which grew to become the world's largest music streaming platform with 489 million users as of Q4 2022; Uber, a transportation network with 110 million active users worldwide and 69% market share in the U.S.; and Airbnb, a website that rents out bed and breakfast accommodations. Airbnb now has a market capitalization of $75.494 billion, with hosts and residents in 191 countries around the world. That's why Kutcher has been called "the top investor in technology.

In addition to the above investments, he has invested in Lenovo and was even hired by Lenovo as a product engineer and also as Lenovo's spokesperson for the U.S.

However, despite the hot wind of technology venture capital blowing from Silicon Valley to Hollywood, even Kutcher himself admits that the technology investment sector is always full of so-called hype cycles, such as the recent cryptocurrency boom. He likewise believes that the AI industry, as well as the cryptocurrency industry, is in dire need of regulation of relevant regulations.

As it stands, there are not many Hollywood keen to invest in AI in general.

In the latest move by the wealthy and famous Kim Kardashian, one of the top celebrities in American entertainment, in September 2022, Kardashian announced that she had joined forces with Jay Sammons, a former partner at Carlyle Investment Group, to form a private equity firm, SKKY Partners.

With this, Kim Kardashian became another American star to enter the private equity industry. But the fund's investment universe looks very traditional - focusing on investments in the consumer, hospitality, luxury, digital commerce and media sectors.

Kim Kardashian's earlier investments have been in Shoe Dazzle, a women's shoe e-commerce site, SKIMS, a lingerie brand (valued at $1.6 billion in 2021), and Kim Kardashian: Hollywood, a personal development online game, among others, so she has gained a lot of experience.

Another Hollywood star familiar to Chinese audiences, Leonardo DiCaprio, is still stuck in the Internet era, with his last influential investment dating back to 2011, when he became an investor in social networking site Mobli for $4 million.

Mobli is similar to Instagram, with only 2 million users in 2012 and 12 million by the end of 2013. 2015 saw the launch of EyeIn, a real-time photo search engine, which has raised about $86 million so far.

#02 Chinese stars experienced three waves of investment fever

Compared to Hollywood stars, domestic celebrities are currently investing in AI, which is still relatively rare.

From the past few years, Chinese stars cross-border investment, mainly in three stages. One is to focus on restaurants, film and television, clothing and other such areas where the investment threshold is not high and the project is not difficult to understand the cost. These types of investment projects are the usual target of investment after the stars have accumulated capital.

For example, Ren Quan invested in Hot One, Gao Yuanyuan invested in Honey Peach Restaurant, Chen He invested in Ju Xian Zhuang (I withdrew my shares in 2022). Hong Kong and Taiwan artist Chen Guanxi founded the trendy brand CLOT, Pan Wei Bai and Li Chen founded the clothing trendy brand N.P.C., etc..

These projects tend to gain high exposure in the early stage of their establishment because of the support of celebrities. The influence of celebrities is transformed into brand awareness.

Second, with the influence of the Internet trend and environment, entertainment stars also began to hug from entertainment film and television to cross-border technology circle. This period is mainly concentrated in the 2014-2020 period. When the stars invested in popular areas, including the once hot artificial intelligence, VR boom in 2016, etc..

In this period, one of the more representative celebrity investment institutions, Star VC, was co-founded by Ren Quan, Huang Xiaoming and Li Bingbing on July 11, 2014, and in October 2015, Huang Bo and Zhang Ziyi joined Star VC as new shareholders.

According to Sky Eye, Star VC has 61 investment projects in 21 industries, mainly in e-commerce, automotive transportation, artificial intelligence, entertainment and media, corporate services, health care, finance, hardware and other industries, with high frequency investment around 2017.

Data shows that in the hardware sector, Star VC had invested in a wave of AI and VR-related companies in 2015-2016, which was also an investment hotspot in that year.

Public information shows that Star VC has participated in investing in artificial intelligence and computer vision systems and chips "Zhao Guan Electronics" (visual artificial intelligence chip design company, founded in 2016 in Shanghai), VR + AI technology company 51 VR (founded in 2015 in Beijing), as well as enterprise services in the field of AI The company also raised Series A funding for Shang Tang Technology (founded in 2014), an AI unicorn in the enterprise services sector.

In the automotive sector, Star VC has invested in projects such as positioning algorithm solution developers and new energy vehicle sellers during the windy period of new energy vehicles, as well as smart parking companies and auto parts supply chain providers around the upstream and downstream automotive industry chain.

In addition, Star VC has invested in some well-known cases, including Ideal Car (A + round), Handu Clothes (angel round) and education unicorn Palm 1 to 1 (C + round).

In addition to Star VC, another active investor is singer Hu Haiquan.

In 2013, Hu founded the equity investment fund company "Haiquan Fund" (from which Hu withdrew his shares in 2022), which currently manages seven special funds, focusing on investments in artificial intelligence, consumer upgrading, healthcare, pan-entertainment and other fields.

The projects it has led include Xiaomi VR all-in-one hardware developer Linqi Intelligence (founded in Shanghai in 2017), electronic music platform PYRO Music (founded in Shanghai in 2015), Xiaomi eco-chain company RuiMi (founded in Wuxi in 2015), and electronic music live entertainment company A2 live (founded in Shanghai in 2014).

Third, in the past three years, meta-universe, NFT, and 5 G fields have started to become investment targets for some Chinese stars.

In March 2022, Bai Jingting, a new generation actor, first entered the VC/PE circle by joining the Yuna Qicai equity investment enterprise under Yuna Capital (founded in Hunan in 2013, Chairman and General Manager Wang Shuai), and started to invest in the technology circle across the border.

According to public information, the cumulative management scale of Yuna Capital is over 5 billion RMB, focusing on new materials, 5 G applications, IoT, big data, cloud computing, smart manufacturing and other fields, and has invested in over 100 companies such as Tiger 360, Lanshi Technology, Valin Cable, Yuanda Sumitomo, and Longchao Cloud.

In addition, the popular concepts of Web3 and meta-universe in recent years have also once become popular for Chinese celebrity investment.

In January 2022, Jay Chou's hip brand PHANTACi and the meta-universe platform Ezek jointly launched the NFT work Phanta Bear (fantasy bear), which sold 3,000 units in 5 minutes online and was announced to be sold out in just 40 minutes, earning about 62 million yuan; in just half a month, the trading volume of Phanta Bear NFT has exceeded 500 million.

The AI investment boom has reached Hollywood. Recently, Ashton Kutcher, the actor who played Steve Jobs, has invested in OpenAI, Stability AI and Anthroic, three of the most popular companies in the AI field, attracting attention.

In China, there have been few reports of celebrities investing directly in similar targets. In the past 10 years, Chinese celebrities have invested in a wave of hotspots ranging from traditional restaurants, film and television, and trendy clothing to the Internet, meta-universe, and NFT. Some investment institutions investors told "true story research room", the domestic AI field is now mostly large platform investment, high capital and knowledge threshold demand, and the project commercialization landing, as well as a long exit year, requiring investors to have a long-term running awareness. Short-term wind is not suitable for this field of investment. The star is advisable or first through the film and television winter, the work well.

#01 Hollywood stars invest in AI

In late May, the venture capital fund Sound Ventures, whose founders are Kutcher and his friend Oseary, appeared in OpenAI's latest round of financing in the second quarter of this year.

Kutcher, who played Apple founder Steve Jobs in the movie "Steve Jobs" (released in October 2015), was once said to be the highest paid actor in Hollywood, while Oseary previously worked as the manager of American pop star Madonna and veteran rock band U2.

Kutcher raised a $243 million investment fund in just five weeks and invested the money in artificial intelligence startups, according to a Bloomberg TV interview.

He said that there has been a group of limited partners (LPs) with whom they have maintained a relationship.

Interestingly, of the three companies Kutcher has invested in, two are clearly competing - OpenAI and Anthroic, an AI startup founded by a former OpenAI executive who, on March 15, 2023, released a ChatGPT-like product Claude.

OpenAI and Anthropic are backed by Microsoft and Google, respectively, two trillion-dollar giants that are escalating the battle around AI. In contrast, Stability AI is an open source company and seems to be more independent.

Talking about the reasons for intensive investment in the AI field, Kutcher believes that the release of GPT is an absolute breakthrough.

Some voices believe that Kutcher and his Sound Ventures are definitely betting on the AI space, but that it is using a diversification strategy to put its eggs in different baskets and see which company can finally run out.

To the outside world, Kutcher is an actor, but those who know him well know that "sometimes he knows so much about technology that he surprises people in show business."

Joshua Michael Stern, the director of "Steve Jobs," has said that Kutcher is very knowledgeable about the history of Apple. In addition, Kutcher was the first Twitter user to surpass 1 million followers.

In fact, as co-founder and partner of venture fund Sound Ventures, Kutcher manages more than $1 billion in capital. For the past seven years, Kutcher has been investing extensively in the Internet and technology sectors.

Kutcher has invested in Skype, Spotify, Uber and Airbnb, earning a total of $250 million over the years, all as an angel financier as a shareholder before the software was even incubated.

Skype, an instant messaging application that was eventually acquired by Microsoft for $8.5 billion; Spotify, which grew to become the world's largest music streaming platform with 489 million users as of Q4 2022; Uber, a transportation network with 110 million active users worldwide and 69% market share in the U.S.; and Airbnb, a website that rents out bed and breakfast accommodations. Airbnb now has a market capitalization of $75.494 billion, with hosts and residents in 191 countries around the world. That's why Kutcher has been called "the top investor in technology.

In addition to the above investments, he has invested in Lenovo and was even hired by Lenovo as a product engineer and also as Lenovo's spokesperson for the U.S.

However, despite the hot wind of technology venture capital blowing from Silicon Valley to Hollywood, even Kutcher himself admits that the technology investment sector is always full of so-called hype cycles, such as the recent cryptocurrency boom. He likewise believes that the AI industry, as well as the cryptocurrency industry, is in dire need of regulation of relevant regulations.

As it stands, there are not many Hollywood keen to invest in AI in general.

In the latest move by the wealthy and famous Kim Kardashian, one of the top celebrities in American entertainment, in September 2022, Kardashian announced that she had joined forces with Jay Sammons, a former partner at Carlyle Investment Group, to form a private equity firm, SKKY Partners.

With this, Kim Kardashian became another American star to enter the private equity industry. But the fund's investment universe looks very traditional - focusing on investments in the consumer, hospitality, luxury, digital commerce and media sectors.

Kim Kardashian's earlier investments have been in Shoe Dazzle, a women's shoe e-commerce site, SKIMS, a lingerie brand (valued at $1.6 billion in 2021), and Kim Kardashian: Hollywood, a personal development online game, among others, so she has gained a lot of experience.

Another Hollywood star familiar to Chinese audiences, Leonardo DiCaprio, is still stuck in the Internet era, with his last influential investment dating back to 2011, when he became an investor in social networking site Mobli for $4 million.

Mobli is similar to Instagram, with only 2 million users in 2012 and 12 million by the end of 2013. 2015 saw the launch of EyeIn, a real-time photo search engine, which has raised about $86 million so far.

#02 Chinese stars experienced three waves of investment fever

Compared to Hollywood stars, domestic celebrities are currently investing in AI, which is still relatively rare.

From the past few years, Chinese stars cross-border investment, mainly in three stages. One is to focus on restaurants, film and television, clothing and other such areas where the investment threshold is not high and the project is not difficult to understand the cost. These types of investment projects are the usual target of investment after the stars have accumulated capital.

For example, Ren Quan invested in Hot One, Gao Yuanyuan invested in Honey Peach Restaurant, Chen He invested in Ju Xian Zhuang (I withdrew my shares in 2022). Hong Kong and Taiwan artist Chen Guanxi founded the trendy brand CLOT, Pan Wei Bai and Li Chen founded the clothing trendy brand N.P.C., etc..

These projects tend to gain high exposure in the early stage of their establishment because of the support of celebrities. The influence of celebrities is transformed into brand awareness.

Second, with the influence of the Internet trend and environment, entertainment stars also began to hug from entertainment film and television to cross-border technology circle. This period is mainly concentrated in the 2014-2020 period. When the stars invested in popular areas, including the once hot artificial intelligence, VR boom in 2016, etc..

In this period, one of the more representative celebrity investment institutions, Star VC, was co-founded by Ren Quan, Huang Xiaoming and Li Bingbing on July 11, 2014, and in October 2015, Huang Bo and Zhang Ziyi joined Star VC as new shareholders.

According to Sky Eye, Star VC has 61 investment projects in 21 industries, mainly in e-commerce, automotive transportation, artificial intelligence, entertainment and media, corporate services, health care, finance, hardware and other industries, with high frequency investment around 2017.

Data shows that in the hardware sector, Star VC had invested in a wave of AI and VR-related companies in 2015-2016, which was also an investment hotspot in that year.

Public information shows that Star VC has participated in investing in artificial intelligence and computer vision systems and chips "Zhao Guan Electronics" (visual artificial intelligence chip design company, founded in 2016 in Shanghai), VR + AI technology company 51 VR (founded in 2015 in Beijing), as well as enterprise services in the field of AI The company also raised Series A funding for Shang Tang Technology (founded in 2014), an AI unicorn in the enterprise services sector.

In the automotive sector, Star VC has invested in projects such as positioning algorithm solution developers and new energy vehicle sellers during the windy period of new energy vehicles, as well as smart parking companies and auto parts supply chain providers around the upstream and downstream automotive industry chain.

In addition, Star VC has invested in some well-known cases, including Ideal Car (A + round), Handu Clothes (angel round) and education unicorn Palm 1 to 1 (C + round).

In addition to Star VC, another active investor is singer Hu Haiquan.

In 2013, Hu founded the equity investment fund company "Haiquan Fund" (from which Hu withdrew his shares in 2022), which currently manages seven special funds, focusing on investments in artificial intelligence, consumer upgrading, healthcare, pan-entertainment and other fields.

The projects it has led include Xiaomi VR all-in-one hardware developer Linqi Intelligence (founded in Shanghai in 2017), electronic music platform PYRO Music (founded in Shanghai in 2015), Xiaomi eco-chain company RuiMi (founded in Wuxi in 2015), and electronic music live entertainment company A2 live (founded in Shanghai in 2014).

Third, in the past three years, meta-universe, NFT, and 5 G fields have started to become investment targets for some Chinese stars.

In March 2022, Bai Jingting, a new generation actor, first entered the VC/PE circle by joining the Yuna Qicai equity investment enterprise under Yuna Capital (founded in Hunan in 2013, Chairman and General Manager Wang Shuai), and started to invest in the technology circle across the border.

According to public information, the cumulative management scale of Yuna Capital is over 5 billion RMB, focusing on new materials, 5 G applications, IoT, big data, cloud computing, smart manufacturing and other fields, and has invested in over 100 companies such as Tiger 360, Lanshi Technology, Valin Cable, Yuanda Sumitomo, and Longchao Cloud.

In addition, the popular concepts of Web3 and meta-universe in recent years have also once become popular for Chinese celebrity investment.

In January 2022, Jay Chou's hip brand PHANTACi and the meta-universe platform Ezek jointly launched the NFT work Phanta Bear (fantasy bear), which sold 3,000 units in 5 minutes online and was announced to be sold out in just 40 minutes, earning about 62 million yuan; in just half a month, the trading volume of Phanta Bear NFT has exceeded 500 million.