Fascinating sniblet from the Wall Street Journal this morning reporting that Google is working on a venture capital arm.
Photo by Mykl Roventine on Flickr. Some rights reserved.
Google's senior vice president of corporate development David Drummond is leading the project and he has hired entrepreneur William Maris to set the scheme up. WSJ is vague on the details and the likely targets for investment, and also says this has been mooted before and then dropped.
There's a feeling that companies with such an enormous influence over their sectors have an obligation to put something back. Intel, Motorola and Comcast all have VC divisions, as well as Disney and Amazon.
There's an argument about this kind of early stage investment strengthening control over a market though, buying up talent and ideas before they hit mainstream awareness. Given their market savvy it's surprising this hasn't happened before.If it goes ahead this time, that will be good for startups, but there's a note of caution in there, too.
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