
Google Ventures beefs up fund size to $300 million a year - EzGraphs
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/08/us-venture-google-cash-idUSBRE8A70MD20121108
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debacle
> Still, Google Ventures lacks superstar companies such as microblogging
> service Twitter or online bulletin-board company Pinterest.

Neither of those companies are on the road to profitability, IIRC, though
Pinterest would of course have a much easier time of it.

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atomical
Is Twitter running out of money?

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debacle
I don't know what their financials look like, but a company with 100 million
but no revenue is only worth 100 million.

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jonknee
Twitter has revenue. Though either way I think Instagram would like to
disagree with your valuation statement.

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debacle
Instagram was a tactical pre-IPO aquisition to stave off uncertainty. Facebook
likely made their money back in the IPO deal, and Instagram's valuation has
fallen drastically with Facebook's stock price adjustment.

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davidu
None of your points has anything to do with "worth." Worth as we are using it
is almost universally defined as the price an arms-length buyer is willing to
pay for the total sum of an entity.

So Twitter is worth far more than $100mm. It's currently worth billions of
dollars. Tomorrow, that could all come crashing down, but today, it's a fact.
What you suggest is not anything remotely associated with fact.

Deciding a company is worth whatever amount of cash they have on hand, or have
raised (you weren't clear on which metric you got your worth basis from) is
really a naive view of valuation.

And now I'm sure I'll get flamed off News.YC like I always do.

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loceng
$300 million a year isn't much for a company worth so much, and where in a
space that costs to develop are relatively low; Costs are with expansion and
breaking into competitive markets, and also physical technology they've also
been investing in.

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loceng
I really wonder how competitive Google Ventures is when it comes to valuation.
Seed round they put in $250k, though how much do they expect equity wise?
Anyone know what those deals look like?

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001sky
_The firm's recent hiring of high-profile entrepreneur Kevin Rose as a partner
could help attract higher-profile deals._

\-- Is there a people problem at GV?

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rdl
Not sure exactly what you mean by that.

Digg seems to have been a colossal fuckup, especially toward the end, but
Kevin Rose was a pretty successful and well regarded angel investor separate
from that. Entrepreneurs, even failed ones, who become VCs do seem to have a
lot of advantages -- look at Marc Andressen, Ben Horowtiz, Chris Dixon, or
Paul Graham...

I'm sure Google Ventures has the same people problem as anyone else in the
valley -- it is hard to find and hire great people due to all the other
opportunities -- but I don't think they have a lower quality of people than
other funds. They may have some unique issues (I'd rather work for Google
itself, which is amazing in a lot of ways, than Google Ventures, which is mid
pack), but for a company affiliated semi-strategic, I don't think they are
bad.

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001sky
The author implies a staffing delta up would change (increase) the performance
of the fund. That may or may not be the view that others share, hence the
query.

GV have strong brand affinity, deep pocketed sponsor, potential strategic/bus-
dev angles, strong networks from current/xooglers etc. The two contra's are :
(1) Strategic Fund (generically==not good); and (2) People (generic ==unkown).
I'd be surprised if GV didn't get good looks at deals, unless issues were tied
to the these last two points.

But it's also possible the author is just editorializing or ad-libbing or
name-dropping or what-you-will.

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rdl
I think one of the differences is that GV doesn't invest tiny amounts in late
stage hot deals at high valuations just to get their name on the investor list
-- that's the traditional way for newer funds to inflate their reputation.
Being a "strategic seed" is hard to bootstrap since basically no seed company
is going to be Twitter inside of a couple years.

Other new funds have definitely brought in high profile partners from other
funds (or been due to a schism within an existing fund...), or successful tech
CEOs, or whatever.

