We’ve been writing about crowdfunding frequently, but today we’re covering ‘starfunding’ as all-star football player Cristiano Ronaldo invests in Mobitto’s mobile loyalty card (Update – March 2023: The startup seems to be no longer in business under this website, and we therefore deactivated the original link).
Mobitto is a Lisbon-based mobile marketing startup that aims to improve the way people interact and engage with their favorite brands. How does this work? Users can collect points that can be converted into rewards.
The app is going to be available early 2013, but it seems there will be enough beta testers available as soon as the Real Madrid star and FIFA Ballon d’Or nominee Cristiano Ronaldo published the news to his Facebook fans recently; in just 6 hours some 25,000 of his 51 million fans already saw the post.
According to Ronaldo’s post, the football star said: “Empowering people through mobile technologies is the future and that is why I just became an investor & ambassador at http://mobitto.com/”
So what is ‘star funding’? It’s not completely new, as Hollywood stars Ashton Kutcher and Jessica Alba have shown. Here in Europe we’ve seen a few similar stories, and are waiting for other famous names to jump on the tech startup scene. Either way, this kind of celebrity endorsement can do wonders for expanding a startup’s visibility.
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Cool! I also want some starfunding from Cristiano Ronaldo. 🙂