08
de Febrer
de
2016
Act.
08
de Febrer
de
2016
It is said that all investment carries a risk, but there are some tricks to reduce the uncertainty. One of the best "loopholes" is to follow Ashton Kutcher's example. It is not enough that he is one of the best-paid actors on television thanks to his role in the popular series, Two and a Half Men, but his curriculum shows an extraordinary ability to identify successful technological projects.
A quick look at the list of companies that Kutcher has invested in from the start, show companies such as Foursquare, Spotify, Airbnb, Skype, Flipboard and SoundCloud, among others. So, where does this clinical eye for spotting start-ups to invest in come from? The actor has explained in interviews that, during his early years in the world of cinema, he saw the potential of the Internet as a tool for diffusing audiovisual material and that this interest led him to learn about emerging companies associated with social networks. "They are projects that foster communication between people and provide us with new ways of selling our ideas, our products, our films and music," he told the publication Money Morning.
Kutcher manages his investments through the A-Grade Investments venture capital fund, set up in 2007, which has a market value of more than 100 million dollars. The strategy is clear: to back new projects to help them grow and then to get out when the investment reaches a critical point. An example is his injection, along with other investors, of 2.75 billion dollars in Skype in 2009 that led, only two years later, to him benefiting from the purchase of the company by Microsoft for more than eight billion dollars.
Investments are not the only link that Kutcher has to technology. In 2013, the actor starred inJobs (Joshua Michael Stern, 2013), the unauthorised biopic of the Apple founder. In the background, Kutcher is part of the group of engineers working on developing YOGA tablets, from the Chinese company, Lenovo. The company contacted him in 2013 with the aim of exploiting his public image for promotion purposes, but also for him to become involved in the design and conception of its products.
A quick look at the list of companies that Kutcher has invested in from the start, show companies such as Foursquare, Spotify, Airbnb, Skype, Flipboard and SoundCloud, among others. So, where does this clinical eye for spotting start-ups to invest in come from? The actor has explained in interviews that, during his early years in the world of cinema, he saw the potential of the Internet as a tool for diffusing audiovisual material and that this interest led him to learn about emerging companies associated with social networks. "They are projects that foster communication between people and provide us with new ways of selling our ideas, our products, our films and music," he told the publication Money Morning.
Kutcher manages his investments through the A-Grade Investments venture capital fund, set up in 2007, which has a market value of more than 100 million dollars. The strategy is clear: to back new projects to help them grow and then to get out when the investment reaches a critical point. An example is his injection, along with other investors, of 2.75 billion dollars in Skype in 2009 that led, only two years later, to him benefiting from the purchase of the company by Microsoft for more than eight billion dollars.
Investments are not the only link that Kutcher has to technology. In 2013, the actor starred inJobs (Joshua Michael Stern, 2013), the unauthorised biopic of the Apple founder. In the background, Kutcher is part of the group of engineers working on developing YOGA tablets, from the Chinese company, Lenovo. The company contacted him in 2013 with the aim of exploiting his public image for promotion purposes, but also for him to become involved in the design and conception of its products.