SAN FRANCISCO — Here is how the venture capital game used to be played around here:
A friend calls a friend who knows a guy. A meeting is taken. Wine is drunk (at, say, Madera lounge in Menlo Park). A business plan? Sure, whatever. But how does it feel?
This is decidedly not how Google, that apotheosis of our data-driven economy, wants to approach the high-stakes business of investing in the next, well, Google. Unlike venture capitalists of old, the company’s rising V.C. arm focuses not on the art of the deal, but on the science of the deal. First, data is collected, collated, analyzed. Only then does the money start to flow.
Google Ventures and its take on investing represent a new formula for the venture capital business, and skeptics say it will never capture the chemistry — or, perhaps, the magic — of Silicon Valley. Would computer algorithms have bankrolled David Packard or Steve Jobs? Foreseen the folly of Pets.com?
The data provides one answer to those questions, at least for now: Since its founding in 2009, Google Ventures has stood out in an industry that, for all its star power, has been dealing its investors a bad hand. In recent years, an investor would have done better with a ho-hum mutual fund that tracks the stock market than with some splashy V.C. fund. Venture capital funds posted an annual average return of 6.9 percent from 2002 to 2012, trailing major stock indexes, according to Cambridge Associates.
Google Ventures, like all venture funds, does not publicly reveal returns. But its partners can count on one hand the number of its 170 investments that have failed, though it is too early to know how many will succeed, and it has missed investing in some superstar companies. Its successes include companies that have gone public, like HomeAway for vacation rentals and Silver Spring Networks for smart grid software, and start-ups sold to Google, Yahoo, Facebook and Twitter.
Whether Big Data — that label for technology and decision-making that is upending so many businesses — can truly transform the industry that helped spawn it remains to be seen. Few deny that crunching data is increasingly important. But some insist that those old intangibles, like instinct and luck, are still paramount.
“V.C.’s, just like all of our portfolio companies, need to be analytically intuitive in the modern era of data analytics,” said Matt McIlwain, managing director of Madrona Venture Group, which has invested in companies like Amazon.com and Redfin, the real estate site. “But the intuition part is ultimately the biggest factor. And even with all that, a little good luck goes a long way.”
The Latest Bing News on:
Google Ventures
- LSE Ventures Ltd Withdraws Petition to Merge With Blockchain Companyon May 8, 2024 at 12:41 am
LSE Ventures Limited (PSX: LSEVL) has withdrawn its petition from Lahore High Court to merge with Digital Custodian Company Limited, the investment ...
- Rad AI, a startup that helps radiologists save time on report generation, raises $50M Series B from Khosla Ventureson May 7, 2024 at 9:53 am
Vinod Khosla told CNBC that the job "of the radiologist will be obsolete in five years." While the founder of Khosla Ventures later revised that ...
- Google Ventures into Cybersecurity Realm with Threat Intelligenceon May 7, 2024 at 8:08 am
Google's innovative Threat Intelligence product amalgamates advanced AI models with cybersecurity expertise for proactive threat detection and mitigation.
- Honeycomb Insurance grabs $36M Series B from solo VC-led Zeev Ventureson May 7, 2024 at 4:45 am
Zaken's first startup failed in 2018, the former BCG consultant and Wharton MBA spent months trying to understand what he could have done ...
- Microsoft Takes On Google And OpenAI With New AI Model: Reporton May 6, 2024 at 11:34 am
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) ventures into the AI landscape, ready to challenge Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and OpenAI with MAI-1, a formidable new language model led by ex-Google DeepMind co-founder Mustafa ...
- Thompson Center revamp: Google partners with original architects to preserve legacyon May 6, 2024 at 10:51 am
Google has maintained an office in Chicago since 2000 and the company is now investing $280 million in revitalizing the Thompson Center. With previous successful ventures in rejuvenating old buildings ...
- Google just removed RISC-V support from the Android kernelon May 2, 2024 at 1:26 pm
A series of recently merged patches removed support for the "riscv64" processor architecture from the Android Common Kernel's codebase. Android Common Kernel (ACK) are the main ...
- Google's 'fastest-growing' moonshot that spun out into an AI earbuds startup aims to ship its first product this yearon April 26, 2024 at 2:00 am
Google X's project Wolverine spun off into startup Iyo. It's working on an AI-powered hearing device.
- Alphabet Q1 results: Google parent company's revenue at $67.6 billion, beats estimateson April 25, 2024 at 7:35 pm
The Google parent generated sales, excluding partner payouts, of $67.6 billion for the three months that ended on March 31.
- Tom Scott’s CA Ventures strikes back against QuadReal fraud claimon April 25, 2024 at 1:08 pm
The Chicago-based development firm alleges the Canadian investor simply regrets an office lease it knowingly entered, rather than having gotten duped.
The Latest Google Headlines on:
Google Ventures
[google_news title=”” keyword=”Google Ventures” num_posts=”10″ blurb_length=”0″ show_thumb=”left”]
The Latest Bing News on:
Venture capital game
- Pantera Capital invests in TON, eyes support for crypto adoption via Telegramon May 3, 2024 at 2:34 am
Pantera Capital has announced an undisclosed investment in The Open Network (TON) Blockchain, the layer-1 network powered by Toncoin (TON).
- 5 Venture Capitalists Who Recently Closed Their Fundson May 2, 2024 at 9:38 pm
Global innovation and entrepreneurship have greatly benefited from the world of venture capital (VC). This sector offers a solid financial foundation for innovative concepts and game-changing ...
- Notable Capital’s Hans Tung on why founders need to play the long gameon April 30, 2024 at 7:30 am
Hans Tung, a managing partner at Notable Capital, formerly GGV Capital, has a lot of thoughts on the state of venture capital today ... need to play the long game and the reason some VC firms ...
- Notable Capital's Hans Tung on why founders need to play the long gameon April 30, 2024 at 7:30 am
Hans Tung, a managing partner at Notable Capital, formerly GGV Capital, has a lot of thoughts on the state of venture capital today. With $4.2 billion in assets under management, Notable evolved from ...
- Macro concerns kept games investors cautious in Q1 2024 I InvestGameon April 25, 2024 at 4:00 pm
Gaming investments totaled $2.2B in Q1 2024 according to InvestGame. Investors remain risk-averse with few exit options on the table.
- ByteDance Investors’ Waiting Gameon April 23, 2024 at 4:32 pm
Most venture capitalists often see themselves as long-term investors. Those who backed ByteDance, the world’s most valuable venture-backed company, have had plenty of opportunity to test that credo.
- The Complex Terrain of the Video Game Industry: Challenges and Opportunitieson April 22, 2024 at 4:59 pm
Lyman Thai, a San Francisco and Silicon Valley-based partner in the firm’s Transactions Practice Group and Venture & Growth Capital Team, is a keen observer of the video gaming industry and has ...
- The Venture Capitalists Who Like to Play Disasteron April 20, 2024 at 5:59 am
Two weeks ago, things turned dire in Hampton Roads, Va. A hurricane slammed into the main shipyard, one of the country’s most important naval bases, raising questions about the impact of climate ...
- Crystal Ventureon April 6, 2024 at 1:17 pm
All the Latest Game Footage and Images from Crystal Venture Crystal Venture is a voxel based adventure game with a focus on exploration and survival. The whole world around you is uniquely ...
- 5 Tips for Attracting Venture Capital Investment in 2024on March 20, 2024 at 5:00 pm
Fundraising is a momentum game, and as founders navigate the complex terrain of venture capital, aligning with investors who value substance and efficiency becomes paramount. This compilation ...
The Latest Google Headlines on:
Venture capital game
[google_news title=”” keyword=”fix the internet” num_posts=”10″ blurb_length=”0″ show_thumb=”left”]