US-based search engine Google has been involved directly or indirectly in a busy run of deals over the last few days.
The search engine’s corporate venturing unit Google Ventures has helped Read It Later, which runs an application that bookmarks web-based information, raise $2.5m in series A funding, the start-up said in a blog post. It also raised money from venture investors Foundation Capital, Baseline Ventures, Founders Collective and other investors. Read It Later was founded in 2007. This followed Google Ventures’s backing of mobile application company ThinkNear earlier this week, as previously reported.
Separately Google, the parent company, has hired the team of Scoopler, a search engine, which was backed by venture investors including TomorrowVentures, the fund of Google chief executive Eric Schmidt. Scoopler is also backed by venture firms Avalon Ventures and XG Ventures.
Meanwhile Google’s first three investors, Andy Bechtolsheim, David Cheriton and Ram Shriram, have invested in the seed round of cloud computing company Nebula, with Google backer Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as well as venture firm Highland Capital Partners also investing. The company announced its launch at the same time as the funding.
Also, Google Ventures-backed image sharing company Pixazza has rebranded as Luminate.