Lance Bass says he really regrets not listening to Britney Spears about investing in Uber.
Spears, Beyoncé, and Leonardo DiCaprio are just a few of many Hollywood A-listers to invest in Uber.
In 2015, Spears gave Uber users in LA an early look at a song collab with Iggy Azalea.
Lance Bass might have had a very successful pop career in the '90s and early aughts as a member of NSYNC, but he says he has one big regret from those days: not listening to Britney Spears about investing in Uber.
The former boy band member told The Daily Beast about his missed tech investment opportunity in an interview published on Friday, adding that Spears, the pop icon behind anthems like "Hit Me Baby One More Time" and "Toxic," was an early investor in the ride-hailing company currently valued at $80 billion.
"I don't even know if most people know that, but I learned all about it from her," Bass told the publication about Spears' involvement with Uber.
According to Bass, Spears tried to tell him to invest in Uber as well, but he decided not to do it.
"I definitely am kicking myself," he said. "I was like, 'It's very revolutionary and I think this could disrupt the taxi market.' But my gut was like, 'I don't know, I'm just not ready.'"
Representatives for Uber, Bass, and Spears didn't immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.
Ashton Kutcher and Beyoncé also invested in Uber
Spears was assisted by Bechtel Ventures, a company that helps Hollywood A-listers navigate Silicon Valley, when she invested in Uber, which was first founded in 2009, Business Insider previously reported.
It is unclear if Spears (whose Forbes-reported $60 million net worth is under near-constant public scrutiny due to her ongoing conservatorship case) still retains her investment in the company.
The pop star was involved with the app-based car service in some capacity up until 2015 at least. That year, Uber riders in LA were given a head start in streaming "Pretty Girls," a song Spears released in collaboration with Iggy Azalea.
While Spears may have been "one of the first" people to financially back Uber, according to Bass, she was not the only Hollywood A-lister to invest in the company.
In 2011, "That '70s Show" actor Ashton Kutcher and his business partner, Guy Oseary, invested $500,000 in Uber that Forbes estimated was worth "100 times what they paid" only five years later.
Other notable faces from the Hollywood crowd to have invested in Uber include Leonardo DiCaprio, Olivia Munn, Sophia Bush, Will Smith, and Jay Z and Beyoncé.
In 2015, Beyoncé performed at an Uber event, the New York Times reported, for a fee of $6 million in restricted stock units.
As for Bass, he told The Daily Beast that he learned his lesson from Uber and is looking for his next big investment opportunity by joining "Unicorn Hunters," a show where entrepreneurs and businesspeople, including Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak, decide whether they'll invest in what could be the next billion-dollar company.
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Source: Yahoo News.
