Oscar winning actor Leonardo DiCaprio has become a special advisor to Boston-based venture capital firm Data Point Capital. He is now an investor in its latest fund.
If you're unfamiliar with Data Point, the firm has made investments in Somerville-based TV adtech startup clypd, Boston-based athlete coaching platform CoachUp and Chicago-based art supply ecommerce site Blitsy. The firm was founded by Scott Savitz, founder and former CEO of Shoebuy.com, which he sold to IAC in 2006.
It was not DiCaprio's first step into the VC world. He had already made several investments in startups, including Casper, bed mattress ecommerce site , personal recommendation site Qloo and Diamond Foundry, diamond producer.
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DiCaprio is a limited partner in Data Point. DiCaprio has invested in the second close of Data Point’s second $50 million fund, which happened in late September. Data Point’s other advisors/limited partners include Colin Angle, iRobot CEO and co-founder , Diane Hessan, CSpace founder, Sycamore Networks co-founder Desh Deshpande and Endeca co-founder Steve Papa.
All of Data Point’s advisors have been called special advisors, but they act like the operating or venture partners in which they’ll help with deal sourcing, due diligence and maybe join the board of one of their portfolio companies.
Majors said that he had expected that DiCaprio will join any of the company boards, but DiCaprio was expected to point Data Point to potential startups to invest in and help the firm’s portfolio companies “in ways that he can, through press and other medium avenues.” Majors said Data Point will see how the role evolves from there.
Majors said, “We look at this as a guy who can help us give visibility for the companies in our portfolio which he finds interesting and meaningful.”
Majors added that Data Point was not necessarily seeking out DiCaprio specifically as a potential advisor but found out there were two degrees of separation between the firm and the actor. While he wouldn’t disclose who made the introduction, Majors said that when the firm connected with DiCaprio, they learned that the firm’s focus on capital efficiency , or more broadly the scarcity of resources which resonated with DiCaprio’s environmentalism.
By Prakriti Neogi
