Google Holding $11 Billion in Its Startup Investments

Google's parent company Alphabet Inc. has shared a result from its years of sizeable startup investing for the first time on Monday: The holdings are worth about $11 billion, according to the company estimates.

A new accounting rule prompted Alphabet Inc. to disclose the fair value for its private stock holdings in earnings reports starting this year. The figure includes the company’s stake in some of Silicon Valley’s most highly valued startups, such as Uber Technologies Inc., Airbnb Inc. and Stripe Inc.

Previously, Alphabet reported private stock holdings based on the price it paid for the shares. Last quarter, the company said those holdings were worth $7.81 billion. After the accounting change this quarter, Alphabet valued them at $11 billion. That contributed $3.40 to the company’s earnings per share.

Alphabet’s largest stake on paper is likely Uber. GV (formerly Google Ventures), the company’s venture capital arm, led a $258 million investment investment in the ride-hailing startup in 2013 when it was valued at less than $4 billion. A recent deal led by SoftBank Group Corp. pegged Uber’s valuation at about $54 billion. Alphabet sold some shares in that offering, and then added some more in a legal settlement in February over self-driving cars, a transaction that valued Uber at $72 billion.

Alphabet has three main investment arms through which it keep investing in startups built beyond the Googleplex, including GV, CapitalG (formerly Google Capital) and Gradient Ventures, a VC fund focused on artificial intelligence, as well as strategic investments made out of its corporate arm and individual business units.

Taken together, Alphabet is one of the most prolific corporate investors in startups. In 2017, Crunchbase data shows that these three main investing arms of Alphabet along with Google itself has invested in 103 deals.

Alphabet invests in privately held companies through a variety of entities, including GV and Google, as well as CapitalG, a private equity fund, and Gradient Ventures, a VC fund focused on artificial intelligence, as well as strategic investments made out of its corporate arm and individual business units.

Taken together, Alphabet is one of the most prolific corporate investors in startups. In 2017, Crunchbase data shows that these three main investing arms of Alphabet along with Google itself has invested in 103 deals.

In India, Google made its first direct investment in an Indian startup, picking up a minority stake in Bengaluru-based hyper-local concierge and delivery startup Dunzo. CapitalG, when it was Google Capital, has had invested in India's health-tech startup Practo.

In 2016, Google launched Project Sand Hill to track hottest startups in 30 Countries including India, Israel and China.

Source - Bloomberg

Google Launches New Venture Firm Just For AI Startups

Here comes the good news for artificial intelligence (AI) startups. The parent company of Google and several former Google subsidiaries, Alphabet has officially launched a new firm, Gradient Ventures within Google that will invest in early-stage AI startups, reports CNBC.

The American multinational conglomerate already has GV (formerly Google Ventures) and CapitalG (formerly Google Capital). This newly launch venture fund is not just another Silicon Valley funding source for start ups. According to Anna Patterson, Founder and Managing Director of the firm, Gradient Ventures will be investing in 10 to 15 deals this year, committing $1 million to $8 million in each startup.

Commenting on the development, Patterson said, "If we're really going to help AI happen faster, we needed to be more involved in the community. That's why we decided to do this -- to spur innovation in the AI space."

If reports to be believed, Google is the sole investor in Gradient. Ankit Jain and Shabih Rizvi are Gradient's other partners. As per Patterson there will be an agreement expressly forbidding Google employees from bringing that IP back in-house.

What It Offers Startups?

If one get backing from Gradient, the portfolio companies will have the opportunity to receive advanced AI training from Google. Further with the help of the company startup can gain a Google engineer work onsite and assistance as needed for a set period of time.

Company’s idea is to have a Google engineer do a rotation for six months or perhaps longer if a project needs more time and potentially have the engineer split time across multiple portfolio companies.

Apart from this, the portfolio companies will be able to access training data that Google has accumulated to train their own AI systems.

Aurima, Cape, Cogniac and Dyndrite are few startups that are already participating in the program.

Earlier in June 2017, The tech had rolled out “Website With Google My Business”, a new feature that will help SMBs and startups in India to build a mobile optimised website instantly right from their phone in less than 10 minutes.