The Academy Award-winner is investing in eco-friendly businesses, and others are following his footsteps.
There is a blurry line between actors, athletes, musicians, celebrities, and venture capitalists. The reason? They are taking investing more seriously and becoming more interested in the business. In recent years, many celebrities have been getting involved in VC, and it is becoming more accepted by the star fellows.
More attention is being paid to VC and investment. One of the celebrities making waves in this area is Ashton Kutcher. He and Jay-Z are the most active celebrity investors in the world. Even both of them have started their own firms. Besides that, Nas and Katy Perry have shaken the tech startups with their investment. Meanwhile, the 23 times grand slam winner Serena Williams has started a firm to uplift women and BIPOC-owned businesses.
However, DiCaprio is setting the example for others on how their investment and venture capital can save the planet.
Let’s see how he has impacted others!
What Role Did Leonardo Play In Making Sustainable Investment Cooler Than Ever?
DiCaprio is undoubtedly one of the most famous people on this planet. He has gained such fame from the roles he played in his films. Every film of him gets much appreciation from the viewers and critics. This multi-talented actor has won the hearts of many with his skills. However, his recent movie “Don’t Look Up” has caught the attention of many. Now people are talking about his love for the planet and concerns about climate change.
He has also emerged as an environmental activist in recent years. He has been a strong advocate for sustainable investing, an investment strategy that considers environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors. DiCaprio believes that this type of financing can help to mitigate climate change.
Furthermore, he has created the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation. This foundation is launched to protect the environment. His meeting with former Vice President Al Gore was the first time he took an interest in climate change and the environment.
Referring to the meeting, he said that Gore had drawn a picture of the planet and said, “this is the most important crisis facing humanity”. It ignited the fire in me. That is when I became interested in the issue and concerned about why we haven’t taken steps to resolve it.
Till now, his foundation has raised a massive sum of money which is surprisingly more than $100 million. This money has been used for various causes, including helping people restore carbon-storing mangroves in different counties like Somalia, Kenya, and Mexico and supporting Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline. In addition, his foundation has also helped build community gardens in underdeveloped and low-income areas of Los Angeles, supported Fiji to bring clean electricity, and aided a non-profit law firm to represent young environmentalists who are fighting climate change.
In addition to his foundation, he has also used his wealth to help startups like Mobli, a photo-sharing app. However, DiCaprio is not the first celebrity investor. According to multiple sources, 75 famous investors have supported the startups by providing them with $4.6 billion from 2007 to 2016.
Ashton Kutcher is one of the most famous and the most prominent celebrity investors. He has invested in multiple ventures and startups. Besides that, he co-founded a Venture Capital firm named A-Grade Investments in the United States. The other founders of this VC include Guy Oseary, Madonna’s talent manager and Ronald Burkle, the famous American Business Tycoon.
Kutcher hasn’t stopped here. In 2015, Oseary and Kutcher co-founded another firm, “Sound Ventures”. Nas has also been investing in tech businesses since 2007 to grow his wealth.
On the other hand, DiCaprio is being more interested in sustainability. He has been campaigning for the environment for a long time. He has even made a documentary about climate change. The actor is now starting to make conscious decisions about the production of his films and what he eats to reduce his carbon footprint.
His primary focus was sustainability, even years before ESG investing trend. Sustainable investing was important to the Titanic star years before it became popular on Wall Street.
After Mobli, he has shifted his focus to electrical vehicles. He had dreamt of it years before almost every carmaker started talking about the electrification of cars and other vehicles. He even became the brand ambassador, equity investor and advisor to an electric car making company Fisker Automotives. This brand was co-founded by German industrialist Bernhard Koehler and car designer Fisker in 2007.
The sustainability stars and environmentalists Al Gore and DiCaprio were some of the few people who have got their hands on Fisker’s debut electric vehicle, “the Karma”. It was an ultra-luxury vehicle with body paint featuring recycled glass and interior trim made by reclaimed wood.
After he started his investing career, DiCaprio believed that technology could be a solid instrument for advanced environmental innovation, whether it’s something as simple as a rubbish collection or assisting drivers in transitioning away from the usage of fossil fuels. So in 2015, he invested in Rubicon after Fisker. First, however, to assist other organizations in more sustainable garbage and recycling management, the Lexington, Kentucky-based software startup utilizes its app.
According to corporate statistics, the IT firm controlled 60,000 service locations at the time, but that figure has now expanded to 8 million across all 20 countries and 50 states. In addition, since 2012, it has been a Certified B Corp, a firm that has met rigorous environmental and social responsibility requirements.
The following year, DiCaprio invested in Diamond Foundry, a lab-grown diamond firm that had been in operation for three years. Lab-grown diamonds are physically and chemically identical to natural diamonds and are also known as “cultured” or “man-made” diamonds, but they are more humane and sustainable.
DiCaprio is from one of the renowned names sits on the boards of many sustainability-focused firms. In 2017, he was appointed to the Bluon Energy board of directors. Existing HVAC-R systems develop energy-efficient replacement refrigerants, which consume a lot of energy.
After one year, he joined the advisory board and invested in Kingo Energy. This Guatemala-based firm offers decentralized and clean solar energy to isolated, off-grid communities throughout the world.
The Stars Believe In Long-Term Investing
It stands to reason that DiCaprio has produced 13 feature-length environmental documentaries, containing last summer’s The Loneliest Whale; the 2016 National Geographic, Cowspiracy; the conversation-starting 2016 film about factory farming and the environment. Also, before the flood, DiCaprio-narrated a film about Netflix’s BAFTA and Peabody Award-winning documentary about protecting endangered mountain gorillas from poachers and extinction and scientists discussing climate change solutions. Almost all of DiCaprio’s documentaries deal with repercussions, remedies, climate change, origins, and problems on a local and global scale.
DiCaprio’s track record in investing is honorable, considering the organizations he supports, but also market smart. After his success in EVs and solar, DiCaprio delved into the plant-based food business ahead of each industry’s separate surge.
Before the company began collaborating with a slew of celebrity and athlete investors like Shaquille O’Neal, Alex Honnold, Derrick and Charity Morgan, Kyrie Irving, Chris Paul, and others including snack and food industry titans like McDonald’s and PepsiCo in 2017, The Wolf of Wall Street star invested in Beyond Meat.
Last year, DiCaprio joined a Chilean food-tech firm founded by Lewis Hamilton as an advisory board at Perfect Day. He became an investor and advisor in the cultured beef startups Aleph Farms and Mosa Meat. His portfolio also includes Califia Farms, which makes plant milk and Hippeas, a snack business that offers vegan Cheez Doodles-style puffs produced from pea protein.
In his Mosa Meat investment, he stated, “Reshaping our global food system fundamentally is one of the most significant approaches to fight the climate catastrophe.” In the past, the actor has advocated for eating less meat for environmental reasons.
Did Dicaprio’s Unwavering Commitment To Environmental Stewardship Have An Impact On Others?
Celebrities have started favoring scrappy startups over Fortune 500s in recent years. Meticulously, they want to make money in a more environmentally responsible way. Even money has the potential to be more ecologically friendly, and DiCaprio saw this tendency as well. He is a shareholder in Aspiration, a sustainable banking service that does not lend to the fossil fuel sector. Drake, Robert Downey Jr. and Orlando Bloom quickly follow this trend.
Celebrities are now leading discussions about sustainability and promoting their power investments. There are many high-profile eco investors, Serena Williams, Jay-Z, Katy Perry, Trevor Noah, Jaden Smith, assisting sustainable brands such as Impossible Foods, Cloud Paper (a bamboo toilet paper startup), Oatly, Pela (which manufactures compostable tech accessories), Simulate (a vegan chicken brand), to grow. Although, in many situations, set a new sustainability standard for businesses all around.
Governments fail to reach climate objectives because climate change becomes a more significant concern to humanity and the natural world, and measures are weakened or postponed to placate conservative politicians. Another piece of the jigsaw that might help reduce the oncoming repercussions of human-caused global warming is VC. DiCaprio used his money to invest in fast-growing industries like alternative protein and renewable energy and may shift the scales in favor of climate-friendly solutions.