The Top Actors, Rappers, and Athletes Trying to Disrupt the Tech Game

When you've got so much cash that you can, for example, have your wedding reception—not even your actual wedding—at the Palace of Versailles, something amazing can happen: you can use that money to make even more money in the tech game. (Cue Dr. Evil laugh.)

But it's not as easy as simply putting a $100 bill into a machine and having it spit back out even more Benjamins—you have to invest it, and then pray to the Geek Gods that it comes back to you, either in its full amount or more. If you've watched The Social Network or Jobs, they show how important financing was to Facebook and Apple's development, and the riches that can be made when things go successfully. Investing in anything comes with a risk—the bigger the gamble, the bigger the potential payoff—and investors can always end up losing money when the idea, timing, and eventual product just don't add up. But when it all comes together, boy oh boy is the payoff sweet.

There's a group of celebrities that have tried their hand at investing in apps and startups, joining the game of strategic gambling that gave Silicon Valley its cutthroat rep. Investing in startups gives celebrities the chance to build something to fall back on when they're done with whatever made them that extra money in the first place—like, say, if they're an athlete with just a few more years left in the tank, or battling through injuries that can end their career at any moment. Staking a claim in a company that could potentially net them cash down the road gives them a safety net. There's a good amount of celebs who've launched or invested in startups (there were nearly 17 of them during the launch of the streaming service, Tidal), and some have been surprisingly successful (we're not counting Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine here, since Beats partnered with a larger company, Monster, when it started), while others had their investments flop harder than a floppy disk.

So here they are: the stars who have taken the biggest plunges into the tech world.

Snoop Dogg contributed to a $50 million funding round for Reddit in 2014, and is (fittingly) looking to raise $25 million to invest in technology affiliated with the legal cannabis industry. He's also invested in the new no-fee stock trading app Robinhood, which just came out for iOS. There were also the Snoop-themed iPhone apps iFizzle and Snoop Dogg Boxing.

And Snoop isn't the only celebrity to have invested in Robinhood—so have Jared Leto (who also invested in Reddit) and...

Nas is one of the most prolific musicians turned tech investors—his hands are in a lot of different pots. As of last year, he's invested in more than 40 startups, along with his Robinhood investment with Snoop and Leto. He's dropped money in Fancy, Coinbase, Genius (previously known as "Rap Genius"), Prism Skylabs, Zest Finance, Stance, mParticle, Proven, Earbits, Trendabl, Crowdtilt, 21E6, Balanced, MeCommerce, DeviantArt, 500 Startups, Push IO, Swarm Mobile, Glio, Boosted Boards, MadeFire, Fashion GPS, Washio, SellSimple, Hotelzilla, Signal Ventures, Clean Plates, BOXC, MediaSpike, CapLinked, and SendHub. This guy loves startups.

Ever wonder how Floyd Mayweather and Justin Bieber became friends? It happened after the two became investors in the app Shots, a social network that has no comments and is meant specifically for selfies (even though other social networks have seemingly already turned into that). Shots' CEO, John Shahidi, brought the two together just before the world saw Bieber walk Mayweather to the ring for his fight against Miguel Cotto in 2012. His appearance with Mayweather was meant to get people talking, and stir publicity for the app.

Since then, it looks like the two have been pretty involved in the app's development. Bieber's been publicizing Shots all over Twitter and Instagram, and Mayweather has his own thoughts on what the app should be like. "I just woke up. I had a bad dream," Shahidi says Mayweather told him. "I had a bad dream that we put comments inside Shots." Shots has nearly 5 million users, half of which open the app daily.

Bieber has also invested in Stamped, an app that let's people record and share information (which was bought out by Yahoo!).

If you can't remember seeing Jessica Alba on the silver screen recently, there's a good reason why—she founded the baby-focused startup, The Honest Company, in 2011. Her customers get a monthly subscription of non-toxic diapers and other natural baby products. Last August they closed a fundraising round where they received an investment of $70 million, according to the Wall Street Journal, and were subsequently valued at nearly a billion dollars.

Alba also invested in Honor, an online service that connects in-home caregivers to seniors, earlier this month.

In 2011, JT and Specific Media Group dropped $35 million for Myspace, the boneyard of a social network that was once worth half-a-billion dollars. And while you probably haven't gone back to MySpace after its big redesign in the months after Timberlake's arrival, some people have... Mostly sex workers.

Will.i.am is an interesting cat. You can tell he's passionate about what he does, and though he might think pretty highly of himself as an artist, it's not translating for him in the tech department. In 2012, Will.i.am founded the company i.am.+, which originally focused on iPhone accessories. Then they introduced their first product: a smartwatch called Puls. If you've seen him on stage or at events, he's usually wearing it. (He even wore it to the Apple Watch unveiling back in September).

It looks like an 80s wrist band with a screen. The Puls was originally given out to people who got an invitation (there are no more invites now), and there's no word on a release date. Some units have been posted on eBay for about $300.

Ashton Kutcher (who may or may not think he became Steve Jobs when he portrayed him in a 2013 film) is just as much on an investment high as Nas is. He's invested in dozens of startups through his company A-Grade Investments, like Path, Foursquare, Flipboard, Wavii (acquired by Google), Airbnb, Square, Uber, Washio, Chegg, Secret, and a bunch of others ones you haven't heard of like Nowmov, Nowbox, Blekko, Hipmunk, AeroFS, Optimizely, Tinychat, LikeALittle, Chloe + Isabel, Zaarly, Milk, Grubwithus, StyleSeat, MemSQL, Fab, Duolingo, Airtime, BitPay, Votizen, Couple, Getaround, YourMechanic, BlackJet, Clever, Dailybooth, Houzz, Panorama Education, Heyzap, Mailgun, BloomThat, Balanced, Delight, Nextdoor, Airtable, UberMedia, Etacts, Propeller, Gyft, Mobile Roadie, Wit.ai, SeatGeek, Neighborly, Brizzly, Gidsy, Stockpile, Inc., and CitizenNet. (*exhales in exhaustion*)

Kutcher also founded Thorn, A Plus, and invested in Skype just months before it was purchased for $8.5 billion in 2011.

Mobli is an app for sharing photos and videos, with headquarters based in Tel Aviv—not anything innovative in this day and age, but it was enough to get Leonardo DiCaprio, fellow Pussy Posse member Tobey Maguire, and Serena Williams to all contribute to a round of investments totaling $4 million in 2011. Maguire, Williams, Lance Armstrong, and Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim all invested in another round in 2013, coming out to $60 million.

T.I. invested in a $600,000 seed round for a 23-year-old's startup in 2013 called "Yopima," which stands for "Your Opinion Matters." While this might sound like an app that could spark a social movement, it's actually a service that tells you how many guys or girls are in a venue. “We’re trying to do something that’s going to make your life easier,” T.I. said during the app's launch party. “We’re trying to do something that’s going to make your social experience a little be more pleasant.” Hmm... okay.

LiLo is building an app called Vigme that will identify the clothes and accessories that celebs wear and allow customers to buy them. It got off to a bad start though after she and her brother (a partner on the project) got sued for $60 million after allegedly stealing trade secrets, advisors, and the overall idea for their site from the failed online shopping company, Spotted Friend.

She's also gone on to release a smartphone game called Lindsay Lohan’s Price of Fame, a lame competitor to Kim Kardashian: Hollywood.

Will Ferrell and Judd Apatow are behind the website Funny or Die, which he helped found in 2007 with Gary Sanchez Productions. The site took off with its inaugural video, "The Landlord," and has remained a huge outlet within pop culture thanks in part to Zach Galifianakis​' interview spoof "Between Two Ferns," which featured President Barack Obama as a guest last year to promote Health.gov.

As of now, it looks like that the website might be preppin' for a sale, which could net Ferrell and the founders $100 million to $300 million.

The Knicks are terrible, but at least Melo, a self-dubbed "digital athlete," has a backup plan. He and Stuart Goldfarb, former VP of NBC, started Melo7 Tech Partners, a group that invests in startups, in 2014. Melo's also behind OrangeChef, which aims to create a smart kitchen; SeatGeek, a ticket-buying search engine (that the Manning Brothers are also a part of); and Hullabalu, a children's story-telling app.

“I really want to be the pioneer for that digital athlete," Melo said, "and when it comes to tech I want to be the face of that space."

Enjoy that quote, Knicks fans.

Will Smith has invested in a handful of startups, including Fancy, beauty website Julep, music and health company BioBeats, music website Chromatik, and personalized socks shop, Stance. And that's not including whatever galactic innovations Smith's son, Jaden, is cooking up.

MC Hammer had high ambitions as a techie. He attempted to go toe-to-toe with Google, Bing, and Yahoo by developing his own search engine, the oddly named website, WireDoo. It was supposed to scan data from across the web and public records to give users a one-look place to see relevant information about what they searched for. As Hammer said, "If it's a car... it's not just about the word 'car,' but it's about insurance, it's about the specs, it's about mileage, it's about style, it's about all these things. So that's the way it works."

But that was 2011, and the search engine didn't work out. And to rub salt in an open wound, Hammer was a co-founder of the social network DanceJam, which also eventually failed.

Leto was a part of the recent group of investors that contributed to Robinhood, but he also helped invest $14 million into the live-streaming app, Meerkat. That investment was announced on the same day Twitter announced they were coming out with their own Meerkat live-streaming rival, Periscope, which has since taken over Meerkat in popularity. So, not sure if Leto would have been so quick to bust out his wallet if he'd known Periscope was on the way.

But he has made some good decisions, like investing in Reddit and the digital concierge service, Reserve.

Kanye, who is an advisor to Fancy, finally got a startup off the ground thanks to Jay Z and the rest of the Illuminati with Tidal. But before that, Kanye wasn't trying to invest—he was seemingly trying to get his own investors. Back in 2013, Yeezus was seen hanging with Instagram founder Kevin Systrom, and shouting out "Do y'all want [Google chairman] Eric Schmidt to invest in DONDA?" during a show. Plus, he already has a friendship with big-time Silicon Valley investor Ben Horowitz (who he invited to his proposal to Kim K).

When asked by ValleyWag if Kanye was trying to raise funds for DONDA, Genius co-founder Mahbod Moghadam said, "Yeah, of course."

"[But] Kanye is not good at articulating what DONDA is," he added. BURN!