The Celebrity Tech Startup Bubble

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Today 19-year-old Disney star Selena Gomez joins the ever-rising clan of celebrity tech investors. AllThingsD's Liz Gannes reports  Gomez participated in a $750,000 funding round for the start-up Postcard on the Run, a service that prints and sends photo-postcards from smartphones. What exactly is a teen celebrity pop-star doing getting involved with the generally very nerdy Silicon Valley, you might wonder? Well, it's not different than any other business. And, tech is fashionable these days.

Kim Kardashian 

Forget investments, this famous-for-no-good-reason celebrity has started her very own tech company. In 2009, Kardashian started Shoedazzle, a members only shopping site. Not just a side project, Kardashian's site has over 3 million members. And Silicon Valley is taking Kardashian seriously, too. Last May Shoedazzle received $40 million in financing from Menlo Park firm Andreessen Horowitz. 

Lady Gaga 

The music star teamed up with fellow mega-star Kanye West to invest in music-related start-up, Turntable.fm, contributing to a $7.5 million funding round earlier this summer. 

Justin Timberlake 

More than just an investor, JT bought his very own tech company, taking part owner-ship of MySpace. Inspired by his role in The Social Network? He has an "active role" and will "lead the business strategy," reported The Guardian earlier this year. He also put money into Stipple and Dekko, start-ups that look like they have something to do with Internet and photos and technology. 

Leonardo DiCaprio 

The Oscar nominated actor contributed to a $4 million fundraising round for Mobli, another photo-sharing start-up thing. 

Ashton Kutcher 

Perhaps responsible for this trend, Kutcher's investments have also been successful. Twitter, Foursquare, Path, AirBnB, Skype, Hipmunk: Kutcher's put money into them and all. And since you've likely heard of them, in part because he hypes them in everything else he does, they've done pretty well. 

Zooey Deschanel 

Deschanel has at least one thing in common with fellow brunette celebrity, Kim Kardashian: She too started her very own tech start up, Hello Giggles. With TV producer Sophia Rossi and writer Molly McClear, Deschanel created the lady-centric website that, like Deschanel, has the a cute, twee vibe. 

Justin Bieber 

The Biebs has yet to really join the tech investment scene. He kind of invested in Instagram by posting a photo from the site, which exploded the servers traffic. But he has yet to put in actual capital. We bet he will soon. Given that he hinted at it earlier this year. "For all of you young entrepreneurs out there watching, if you have a brilliant idea, Troy [Lady Gaga's manager] and I will combine the powers of Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber," he told TechCrunch. "Give us a large piece of equity." And now that girlfriend Gomez has her hands in the Tech world, Bieber, already a social media master, might not be able to resist. 

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.