The corporate venturing arm of Google is reportedly set to deploy up to $200m annually as it also makes moves to tap some of the talent at its parent.
Google Ventures has had its annual allocation to spend on start-ups doubled from $100m, according to news provider VentureWire article. Bill Maris, Google Ventures managing partner, said in the VentureWire article it did not mean the firm would deploy this amount but was a limit.
Google is also doubling its office space and has added at least five team members within the past few months, VentureWire said.
The article added Google Ventures will now recruit talent from its technology parent. Sam Schillace, who worked on developing Gmail and Picasa, and John "Four" Flynn, founder of Google’s security metrics group, are joining Google Ventures.
Maris also said in the interview Google has invested in close to 60 companies since it was founded two years ago.
Separately Google Ventures-backed Silver Spring Networks recently filed to raise $150m from an initial public offering.
Silver Spring raised $100m in December 2009 from investors including Google Ventures, which took its total amount raised to $275m, according to news provider Earth2Tech. Silver Spring’s regulatory filing showed Silver Spring raised nearly $200m in 2008 and 2009 alone.
Outside investors with 5%, or more, of the business, are Foundation Capital (41.5%), Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (9.7%), WR Holdings (5%), NCD Investors (7%), Contra Costa Capital (6.1%) and JVB Properties(5.9%). Google is not mentioned, which indicates it has less than a 5% stake in the business.
Investment banks underwriting the offering are Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, Jefferies, Piper Jaffray, Stifel Nicolaus Weisel, Baird, Canaccord Genuity, Evercore Partners and Pacific Crest Securities.