Leonardo DiCaprio is making the move from show biz to social media.
Mobli, a startup that bills itself a "real-time visual media platform," announced Tuesday that DiCaprio had led a $4 million round of funding and would be taking on an advisory role with the company.
"Leo is not a tech guy and we're not looking for advice on technology, but he is a very, very smart guy concerning marketing, so he will be advising us in this territory--branding marketing and stuff like this," Mobli CEO Moshe Hogeg told The Huffington Post. "Leo is very excited. He believes in the vision of the company and thinks that this is the future of media. He wanted to get on board in the beginning, influence it, and give his input into the company."
Hollywood celebrities have become increasingly involved in Silicon Valley startups and DiCaprio is the latest in a series of A-listers to join the tech scene. Ashton Kutcher not only plays a tech investor on TV, but is one in real life, having helped fund companies such as Flipboard, Chegg, GroupMe and Hipmunk. Lady Gaga recently backed Backplane, a social networking site for celebrities launched by her business manager, and was creative director for Polaroid. Justin Timberlake has signed on with Myspace to help revitalize the flagging social network and last week rapper M.C. Hammer unveiled a new search engine, WireDoo.
On Mobli, users can follow "channels" that display photos about a particular topic, such as "challenges," "guys" or "Dancing With The Stars," or posted by a specific person. DiCaprio's official channel has nearly 10,000 viewers--not bad considering he's posted fewer than a dozen times, but a fraction of the 1.6 million followers he has on Twitter or 2 million "likes" he's earned on Facebook.
“Mobli allows people from all over the world to share moments,” DiCaprio said, according to Mashable.
Indeed. So does Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and a slew of other social media sites.
Hogeg said DiCaprio discovered Mobli during its closed beta testing several months ago. One of DiCaprio's close friends was among the 100 people testing the company's app and showed it to DiCaprio, who Hogeg said then requested a meeting with Mobli and later decided to partner with the startup.
