
Google Ventures - epi0Bauqu
http://www.google.com/ventures/
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rgrieselhuber
"If you would like your venture to be considered for funding, email is the
best way to reach us. Please limit your presentation to no more than 20 slides
or three type-written pages. Unfortunately, due to the large volume of email
we receive, we can not promise a response to all inquires."

The ones that we really like, we'll just send to our product team. Those will
be the ones with no response.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Yeah, Google hasn't stolen your idea yet because they hadn't launched a
venture arm to serve as a honeypot for hackers and their brilliant ideas.

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wheels
Agreed. If your strategy to compete with Google is, "They haven't heard our
idea yet." you're probably screwed.

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numair
If this is anything like every other corporate venture arm that has ever
existed, this will be a political (interally) and financial mess. This may
also mean that the acquire-to-hire era is coming to an end at Google, which
would be a negative situation for seed investors such as Y-Combinator.
Overall, I'm not seeing the value equation here -- it's not as though Google
and its employees didn't already have a birds'-eye-view of the startup scene.

~~~
pg
It might not be like every other corporate venture arm, though. A lot of the
things Google does, they do differently from other corporations. I've met
these guys and I'd tend to give them the benefit of the doubt.

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neovintage
I agree that it might not be like every other corporate venture arm. Although,
if I had to speculate, I think Google is doing this because it needs to
diversify its business outside of generating cash through advertising. By
investing in ventures, Google should be able to supplement its income nicely,
keep its stock price high, and not have in increase operating expenses too
much should anything that they invest in takes off.

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numair
If I were a shareholder, I'd much rather have them pay me a dividend than
enter the distracting world of venture capital. These types of moves
inevitably risk turning the company into yet another bloated enterprise, even
if they are successful in their investments.

Google has always had a significant amount of cash. They used to use that
capital to do really interesting, strategically smart things, like buying dark
fiber. This was similar to Apple's philosophy - you don't see Apple
distracting themselves with some sort of "Apple Ventures" play; instead, they
will take advantage of their cash position to do things like cornering the
market for miniature hard disks, which leads to a direct benefit to the bottom
line.

Methinks there are too many cooks in the kitchen.

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wheels
Wait, are you leaving out that block of time that comprises most of Apple's
history where they made bad business decision after bad business decision?

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mitko
To me this looks like another google idea to outsource projects to smart
volunteer people, who are not on Google's payrol.

Maybe this is similar to the various Google initiatives: android application
competition, Google Summer of Code, Google Code Jam etc.

I think this is pretty smart because even if some project do not work out, but
Google decides the people were valuable, Google can recruit them.

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ryanwaggoner
Is it just me, or does this seem like a bad idea for entrepreneurs? I mean, if
Google backed you, wouldn't that make you less desirable to many acquirers who
compete with Google?

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cdibona
No, it wouldn't. I've been at companies that took money from large company
investment arms (in my case, intel and idg) and it didn't really change things
either way. Well, a little on the positive side from a connections standpoint
and a lot from the fact that they gave us moolah.

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cdibona
(not speaking for google, btw) That said, this isn't an april fools joke, it's
real. Rich Miner and Bill exist!

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alexandros
Maybe this is a way to provide more degrees of freedom to some of the more
promissing 20% projects that don't make sense internally?

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thedob
Is this not in direct competition with their "hire-by-acquisition" model?
Generally, Google acquires companies early on for a price that is favorable to
the founders, but wouldn't be favorable to any institutional VC since it
wouldn't "move the needle" enough. If Google Ventures invests, then this means
that they'd be hesitant to sell for a founder-friendly price to google itself.

Then again, maybe companies that say no to an early stage acquisition, are
prime candidates for investment. Something that was impossible before Google
Ventures.

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dejan
Seems to me their 'innovation' machine stopped working long time ago. It was
expected though, after all those acquisitions. In reality, I haven't seen
anything 'new', but just 'better'. This could be their way to go through the
downturn.. As for us, we've applied at YC, but when I weigh it out, it's not
the money that we really need, but guidance. Real costs of doing a startup, in
the beginning, cant be a lot more than 100€ per month. If they are, you are
simply not an entrepreneur...

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ivyirwin
Two things:

First, I'm not sure Google has ever made anything new. They've always just
done it better. And that is a kind of innovation. In fact, I would argue it's
the only kind of innovation. Making new things exists on a completely
different level.

Second, you are right that for start ups the biggest need is guidance. But I
balk at your 100/month figure. Cost of living is a cost. Even in the cases
when it isn't monetary (say living in your parent's basement), there's an
opportunity cost.

~~~
dejan
true. it's incremental innovation. However, they're bad at it too IMHO. Search
hasn't changed since they've launched. And even then, they had nothing
new..Their new algorithm..blahh. Using microcomputers for search processing.
Thats the startup thinking, alright, cut all the costs, do it cheaper, do it
better. There is no recipe, but they hit the right time. Thats what they did
right, recognize the moment. However, google search sucks, and it sucks badly.
Crawlers are as bad as spam. It clogs up. It's inefficient...and Google is too
big to do anything about it, it's victim of its own size. There ARE better
ways. I miss those days when we pulled hair by trying to save a KB in the
mem.. efficiency and efficacy for their own sake.

Regarding the 100/month, my starting point is that you've gotta live anyway,
regardless where your efforts are. I understand your view, I am trying to
change it in self, and found that I approach my business efforts with much
higher perseverance... = I am doing it no matter what, and I will find the
cheapest way to do it, it's worth it!

Good Luck!

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smidwap
I don't know if I'd want to pitch my idea to Google at such an early stage.
They have enough resources to duplicate a lot of entrepreneurs' efforts. Seems
like it is still best to start small, think big, and dream even bigger. Pitch
the idea to Google once it has tangible promise.

My gut tells me to head to Google for sizeable funding, on the order of 100k
and above. Anything less and I'd keep it with places like YC and friends and
family (oh and fools too). Just my 2 pesos

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mcxx
Is this for real or did Google start with the April jokes early this year?

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paraschopra
Wow, finally, a real competition to Y-combinator?

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pg
No; they're planning to operate like a regular VC fund.

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jkrols
_The fund will focus primarily on companies seeking seed funding and early
stage funding, and Google Ventures will have the ability to make investments
ranging from tens of thousands to "several tens of millions" of dollars, Maris
said._

[http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2009/03/reuters_us_g...](http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2009/03/reuters_us_google_fund)

Sounds like competition to me. But it may also bring new opportunities for YC
start-ups to be bought.

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pg
The small investments are not what makes YC YC.

Existing VCs also have the ability to make investments in the tens of
thousands. But they rarely do because that's not what they're designed for.

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jf781
My Angle: I am curious to see how Google structures their fund. How
entrepreneur friendly will they be? Will they be a strategic investor
(translation: driven by internal priorities) verses financial profit motive?

<http://www.siliconangle.com/ver2/?p=3668>

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okeumeni
This is probably the best news of the year for startups. I see Google as a
great partner for entrepreneurs who will not go for small seed money like what
YC, TechStars and other incubator give. A lot of founders I know are people
with career not out of college folks. Kudos Google!!

~~~
smidwap
Why does this guy get negative points? It's legitimate...

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flooha
aaaand...? The site is cold and impersonal and gives no real details about
their strategy or vision. I mean, c'mon...one paragraph + a few one sentence
FAQs? It's almost like, yesterday, someone at Google said, "Hey, we should do
that too.", and threw up a website for it. At this point, I'd much rather get
funded by YC and have a good feel for what I'm really getting out of the deal,
rather than just some $ thrown at me.

Also, and this might not be a negative, but Google is only throwing two guys
at this venture? I'm just not convinced their heart is in this one yet. It
doesn't seem well thought out for a "launch".

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jacktang
April Fool's joke?

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TweedHeads
Kudos! The more the merrier, entrepreneurs should be happy there is another
source of capital for their startups.

Welcome Google Ventures!

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quellhorst
Could this be an early April fools?

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ssharp
Yes, it would be AWESOME PR for google to laugh in the face of everyone who
submits a 3 page pitch tomorrow! HAHAHA suckers. Maybe they should publicly
bash every entry that comes in.

Come on.

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unalone
Agreed. Good grief.

Google always launches their April Fools' joke on April, it's always themed to
look like a preexisting Google theme, and it's always obviously a joke. This
one uses custom font sizes, a custom logo/theme, and it's not funny.

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justindz
The joke tomorrow will be that this announcement was a joke and all the
submissions were a total waste.

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unalone
No. That's not how April Fools works. That's not how Google does April Fools.
Google's jokes are funny for people who _don't_ spend their lives in front of
computers. That's because they're, y'know, actually _funny_ and not _inside
jokes_.

