Google's Eric Schmidt Invests in Ad Startup, Partners with Lady Gaga

Eric Schmidt may be best known for his sting as CEO of Google, he is now Executive Chairman at the giant, and maybe for his visionary but perhaps a bit tactless comments on the future of technology and how it will affect individuals on a personal level.

But the billionaire executive is also a somewhat active investor, through his very own TomorrowVentures firm, and is making bets, funding companies, mostly starting out, either in advertising, close to Google's own expertise, but also in other areas where technology is disrupting traditional models.

A couple of his latest investments surfaced over the weekend and are both equally interesting, from different perspectives. Schmidt, along with Jim Pallotta, Chairman and Managing Director of private equity, firm Raptor Group, led a funding round for Spongecell, a startup focusing on rich media display ads, something Schmidt is a big believer in.

Spongecell specializes in rich media ads, which enable viewers to interact with them in various ways. The idea is that more creative ads, which engage the viewers in various ways, either through video or questions and so on, get more attention and therefore a better ROI for advertisers.

Considering that display ads on the web or growing faster than online advertising as a whole, the technology could prove interesting. Also considering that Google just overtook Yahoo to become the largest display advertisers in the US, signals that Schmidt may be right about his fondness for the medium.

Schmidt also invested in a new startup, still in stealth mode, leading the first round of financing along with Lady Gaga. This pairing may seem like an odd one, but there's a simple connection, the startup was created by Lady Gaga’s business manager Troy Carter.

Carter's new company is working on a platform to enable artists to manage their engagement with their fans across social networks and other sites from a central place.