In newly-released year-end data for this year, it showed that Google Ventures made an impressive 75 in new company investments and exited from 9 of its existing portfolio firms this year alone, TechCrunch said in its report. The investment arm of the search engine giant overall made bets on 225 companies since its establishment four years ago, the report said.
TechCrunch noted that one of Google Ventures' investments included its backing of UBR, a disruptive transportation startup. Google Ventures along with TPG had backed Uber with $258 million.
The data also showed that the venture arm of Google had exited from its investments in several initial public offerings, including RetailMeNot, Silver Spring Networks and Foundation Medicine. Among the many of Google Ventures' acquisitions were cloud app platform Parse, To-Do app Astrid, and airborne wind turbines developer Makani Power. Google Ventures' year in review also dsclosed that one of the companies it has backed this year, angel investor network AngelList, has helped startups to raise funding to the tune of $125 million this year alone.
The tech news site also said that the investment firm had added some partner talent in its roster in 2013. Google Venture brought in MG Siegler, who is a former CrunchFund partner, as a general partner. The firm also promoted Andy Wheeler and Blake Byers to general partners. Moreover, TechCrunch also said that Google Ventures also added Shanna Tellerman and Dave Munichiello as its two new investment partners into the company fold.
The tech news site report stated that Google Ventures has much money to spend this year as it adds more talent. Also, Google Ventures' fund size was said to have upgraded from $200 million to $300 million this year. Despite the criticism it received from industry observers that it has not produced or involved in major deals in the last few years like in Pinterest and Twitter, TechCrunch pointed out that Google Ventures was able to address the critique with its Uber and Nest investments. According to General Partner David Krane, Google Ventures is currently managing $1.2 billion in assets and is set to obtain $300 million in funding from from Google, its sole limited partner, in January next year.
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