Google to Invest in Biotechnology

Filed in archive Corporate and Industrial News on April 3, 2009

Google is launching "Google Ventures" a new venture-capital fund which will invest across a range of industries, including consumer Internet, software, clean-tech, bio-tech and health care.

According to the Boston Globe report:

Google Ventures will scout for entrepreneurial opportunities in a broad range of fields, from search and advertising to mobile computing to medical records and personal genomics. Its target is to invest $100 million in the coming year, with the boston area being one of its geographic areas of interest.

Miner, a Boston-area serial entrepreneur who played a key role in persuading Google to open a research center in Cambridge, will be stepping away from his role with Google's mobile platform Android, which he helped develop, to comanage Google Ventures. The other managing partner, Bill Maris, who has a background in biotechnology and healthcare, will be based at Google's corporate headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.

Google is open to funding biotechnology start-ups. "If we find an interesting therapeutics company, we'd be happy to put down a term sheet," Maris said.

Read the entire report here.