Google Ventures
Posted by jonathan at 1:35pm EST on 03/31/2009
Google has officially announced Google Ventures. Google Ventures is a new branch of Google which will be investing into new start-ups.
At its core, Google Ventures is charged with finding and helping to develop exceptional start-ups. We’ll be focusing on early stage investments across a diverse range of industries, including consumer Internet, software, clean-tech, bio-tech, health care and, no doubt, other areas we haven’t thought of yet. Central to our effort will be our fellow Googlers, whom we view as a critically important resource to help educate us about potential investments areas and evaluate specific companies.
Within the content of the google.com/ventures pages, there is a disclaimer that they may not get back to all inquiries as they receive a lot.
One thing I would be wary of is submitting ideas that relate to Google directly, which is just about everything ever thought of. What is to stop Google from stealing the idea and creating their own version of the idea. Taking the idea to a company like Benchmark Capital, they have absolutely no interest in developing your idea as their own because it wouldn’t benefit them. This is a huge problem I see with having a Venture Capitalist (VC) so closely tied to a company that already has a lot in production mode.
All that to say, I’m a little weary about this new arm of Google. While a lot of people will see it as good, I’m just weighing in on the overly-cautious side.
