On To Google Ventures
It was almost exactly 19 months ago that I laid down the proverbial writer's pen and picked up the less proverbial pen for writing checks. It has been an amazing experience getting a fund up and running, learning, and ultimately, making a lot of wonderful investments.
Context & Ripple Effects
Google Ventures has been scaling deliberately since its early days: the firm revealed its full investment team back in April 2010 (the entire investment team finally revealed), then launched a Startup Lab in February 2011 to support seed-funded startups (video tour of the Startup Lab) alongside a $100 million seed allocation from Google. By mid-2011 it was investing up to $200 million a year, doubling its Googleplex office space, and running a 'Googlers in Residence' program.
Against that build-out, this announcement brings in a writer turned investor who spent the past 19 months getting an earlier fund up and running and making investments. The pickup was unusually broad for a personnel move — Google Ventures' own blog, Business Insider, GigaOM, VentureBeat, PE Hub and Yahoo! News all carried it on or about May 6, 2013 — signaling how much attention a media-fluent hire draws to a corporate venture arm still defining its identity.
First-order effects
- Google Ventures gains an investor with an established writing voice and audience, adding a communications asset on top of its existing Startup Lab and Googlers in Residence infrastructure.
- The fund the writer spent 19 months building loses a check-writer mid-run, leaving its portfolio and pipeline to be covered by remaining partners.
Second-order effects
- Rival corporate venture arms face pressure to compete not just on capital — where Google Ventures already deploys up to $200 million a year — but on brand and distribution, making media-savvy hires a recruiting category.
- Portfolio startups gain a louder storytelling channel into the press, tightening the loop between Google Ventures' deal flow and the tech media that covers it.
Third-order effects
- If corporate funds keep hiring operators and writers rather than career financiers, the line between venture capital and media continues to blur, with firms judged partly on narrative reach as well as returns.
- Google's move from being covered by venture reporters in 2005 to employing them inside its own fund marks the maturation of the corporate VC model it once disrupted.
The trend: Corporate venture arms like Google Ventures are scaling past pure capital deployment into brand and talent acquisition, hiring voices who shape the conversation their portfolios depend on.